A MAJOR highlight of the Empowerment, Poetry and Awards night at the Bermuda Industrial Union was the presentation of Ashay Awards to two middle-school students, Tianna Bernard, 11, and Malachi Wales, 12. They were roundly applauded after the reading of their essays and presentation of their awards by Minister of Rehabilitation Dale Butler.

Malachi, who attends Spice Valley School, with perfect penmanship wrote: “To me Ashay means knowledge about my African black culture and learning about contributions by black people to the global community.

“As a young black male I gain knowing about my ancestors’ challenges of which they struggled to overcome.”

Tianna, who attends Dellwood Middle School, wrote about how Ashay was a representation to herself of the accomplishment of the great black heroes of the past.

She described how the programme was brought to Bermuda by its creator, Mrs. Mwalymu (Mrs. Melodye Micere Van Putten), pictured ae, <$>who had realised that her children and their friends did not know enough about black history.

“I think Ashay is a great subject and if it was removed from schools in Bermuda I would be greatly disappointed as it teaches us all about our past, present and warns us about our future,” Tianna wrote.

Mrs. Van Putten is the wife of Hamilton City Councillor Carvel Van Putten. She gave the Wilfred Allen Memorial Lecture at the empowerment awards night sponsored by the NAR, Bermuda College and Atlantic Publishing House.

Significantly, the event was in the Dr. E.F. Gordon (Mazumbo) Memorial Hall at the BIU on the birthday of Mazumbo who is hailed as the founder of the organised labour movement in Bermuda; and specifically in honour of Mr. Allen, better known as ‘Mose’ Allen. He was the moving spirit behind the formation of the now-ruling Progressive Labour Party.

The title of Mrs. Van Putten’s address was “Calling a Spade a Spade”, and she developed her theme in a manner that would have warmed the cockles of the heart of the blunt, abrasive ‘Mose” Allen.

She said it was a sacred opportunity for her to call a spade a spade, because such was all about truth-telling.

“We have a long history of truth tellers such as Wilfred Allen, Dr. Gordon, Dr. Martin Luther King, L. Frederick Wade, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela.

“The pantheon of truth tellers includes freedom fighters, brave politicians and visionary educators. But, tragically, the reality is such that any message which seeks to empower people of colour is often construed as dangerous, inappropriate, divisive, racist and in an ultra-conservative religious community as anti-Christian and pagan.”

Quoting extensively from Ashay poetry, and even singing an old negro spiritual, Mrs. Van Putten put the current international debate about the 200th anniversary of the Emancipation of Slavery into sharp perspective.

And it was not that of the Emancipation, but rather the 400-year history of the beginning of the slave trade.

“The historical and emotional wounds of a people snatched from their homeland and stripped from their identity markers, their language, names religion and culture, are deep-seated and long-lasting.

She quoted the famous African proverb that states: If you don’t know where you came from, you can’t know where you are going, and if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.

In Bermuda, “we are off on a myriad of roads, very few of which are designed to reclaim black people to a blessed state of wholeness”, she said. There were roads of materialism and acquisition of things that temporarily lifted their self-esteem. The endless pursuit of material status had its regular people taking two and three jobs with no time to adequately attend to the business of living.

Those were factors that could lead to an island-wide dilemma of chaos and confusion, Mrs. Van Putten warned, reminding her audience she was only calling a spade a spade, and at the same time outlining how she is currently laying the groundwork for a schools, system-wide implementation of Ashay: Rites of Passage in Bermuda.

My photos show: Dellwood student Tianna Bernard, 11, with the Ashay Award presented to her by Minister of Rehabilitation Dale Butler (above). Looking on are her proud parents, Barrington and Rosemarie Bernard of Palmetto Road, Pembroke. Left: Malachi Wales, 12, of Spice Valley School, who was applauded for his Ashay essay is with his mother Mrs. Linda Wales and sister Takiesha of Pembroke.