Last year, the Anguilla Enhancement Project (AEP) ran a competition to determine which village on the island was the best. Participating villages included Sandy Hill, East End, Rey Hill, Shoal Bay, Stoney Ground, Little Harbour, Blowing Point, West End, Welches, The Farrigton and Island Harbour.
On Saturday, 16th April, at the Festival del Mar activities, President of the Anguilla Enhancement Project, Mrs. Nakishma Rogers-Hull presented to the Island Harbour community, a beautiful stone carving – in the shape of a dolphin. The replica was carved from Anguilla stone by one of Island Harbour’s residents, Mr. John Lloyd.
In making the presentation of the carving, Mrs. Rogers-Hull said: “I would like to express my gratitude to the Festival del Mar Committee for extending an invitation to the Anguilla Enhancement Project to participate in the opening ceremony of the best festival in Anguilla – Festival del Mar.
“The Best Village Competition was a keenly contested competition. But the winning village, Island Harbour, demonstrated a profound sense of community and togetherness – an ability to mobilise community efforts, and an interest in cleanliness, preservation, and beach upkeep, as well as a commitment to important community buildings like the Vivien Vanterpool Primary School, and an indomitable spirit of jollification.”
“The judges for the competition,” she continued, “came from all over the island, but they all came to one conclusion, which is that Island Harbour was the best Village in Anguilla for the period 2021 to 2022.”
Mrs. Rogers-Hull went on to commend prominent persons in that community for their dedicated work and activism. As regards the dolphin replica, she said: “The AEP promised all participating villages that we would deliver a monument worth fighting over, and that every year we would move that monument as the prize for the winner of the best village competition.”
She noted that eight months ago when the AEP commissioned the prize from John Lloyd, they had not the faintest idea that Island Harbour would be the first winner. But, it was a provisional coincidence that the prized monument is one hundred percent an Island Harbour creation.
When the monument was finally unveiled, cheers filled the air, as the people of the village displayed their patriotism. The first to stand beside the dolphin for a ‘photo-opp’ was Mrs. Rogers-Hull and her fellow committee members – as well as the Honourable Premier, Dr. Ellis Lorenzo Webster.
