Celebrating Jamaican women every day of the year

Amid widespread concerns about spousal violence directed at women in Jamaica, this year’s International Women’s Day, March 8, takes on greater significance and provides an opportunity to celebrate our women for ‘holding up more than half the Jamaican sky’.

The RJRGLEANER Group is leading the way with its annual awards event on March 9, recognising the contribution of women from each of the 14 parishes. The occasion will also be used to formally launch the book Jamaican Women of Distinction, profiling the lives and achievements of 60 living Jamaican women.

Out West, the Montego Bay-based Sarah’s Children will be hosting an International Women’s Day fundraising luncheon dubbed ‘Pearls of the West’, also on March 9. Sarah’s Children is the charity organisation founded by Janet Silvera, one of several women from the west featured in Jamaican Women of Distinction. The book will have its western Jamaica launch at the luncheon, making it the first time that a new book will be launched on the same day in two separate ­locations in Jamaica.

Another Mother

Leading up to International Women’s Day, a different kind of book celebrating motherhood will take the spotlight with a series of events surrounding the local release and launch of Another Mother, the much-talked-about memoir of a Jewish boy and his search to discover the secret past of his beloved Jamaican nanny, Dezna Sanderson. It was released in the US last December by Jamaica’s Ian Randle Publishers and featured in several New York City bookshop windows over the holidays and has been favourably reviewed by the Guardian, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Kirkus Reviews, the ‘Bible’ of the library trade.

Already a big hit with Jamaican and Caribbean nannies in the US who have endorsed the book and buoyed by the glowing media reviews, author Ross Kenneth Urken is in Jamaica this week to share his memoir with Jamaican audiences. In addition to a series of readings, the signature event will be its launch on Thursday, March 5, at the R hotel’s Redbones Café in which Carolyn Cooper will engage Urken in a ‘conversation’ about the book.

Deliberately timed

Urken’s publisher, Christine Randle, comments that the release of the book in Jamaica was deliberately timed to coincide with the observation of International Women’s Day worldwide. “ As it turns out”, says Randle “our timing could not have been better given the recent spate of attacks on women and their obvious vulnerability in spite of their equally obvious strength and resilience as personified by Dezna, the Jamaican nanny in Another Mother.”

Urken, who is an accomplished journalist with story credits for the Washington Post; Travel and Leisure magazine, National Geographic, the BBC among others, will have a busy schedule outside of his book tour assignments. Christine Randle says: “We couldn’t have someone with Ross’ journalistic pedigree come to Jamaica and not share his ­experiences widely. So the National Library of Jamaica will host him at a students’ writing workshop on March 4, at which he will give tips on how to ­structure their writing and self-edit their work.

“Later in the week, on Friday March 6, he will give a higher-level workshop at The UWI to a combined group of students from Literatures in English and CARIMAC, with the focus on journalistic techniques and how to operate in the world of freelance journalism and feature writing.” His itinerary will also include a visit to the Trench Town Reading Centre, and subject to confirmation, a courtesy call on the Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange.