Standing ovation for 2014 Woman of the Year

The popular winner of this year’s title was Jacqueline Williamson, who, in an open-hearted gesture decided to give her award to her friend Kiera Coyle, who accompanied her, and who was praised by Jacqueline for raising her brother and sister after her parents died.

At the ceremony in the City Hotel on Friday evening, Jacqueline, a founder of Kinship Care whose inspirational work was featured in the Sentinel a fortnight ago, told the gathering that she was “grateful” for all the support she had received and thanked her nominator, Kathleen Bradley.

Jacqueline said that winning the award was great for Kinship Care raising the organisation’s profile with those attending the ceremony as well as the profile of the work the organisation did in the city.

According to her nomination form, Jacqueline spent 14 years in the care system and the most of the other girls who were in car with her are now dead.

Inspired to do something, the form revealed that Jacqueline helped secure £1m for a rapid response programme to assist street drinkers and people at risk of homelessness as a result of substance misuse.

Her only sister died in the past year and Jacqueline is now helping to raise her niece.

“Jacqueline’s ability to get herself out of poverty, overcome tragedy, handle a lifetime of rejection, beat all odds and still go on to start a charity is an example of what women are, committed, resilient, determined and capable,” her nominator said.

Congratulating all the winners, and especially Jacqueline, guest of honour, Mayor Martin Reilly said Jacqueline was a well deserved winner: “Jacqueline is an incredibly passionate advocate who has worked in the voluntary sector to improve the lives of both children and carers in the current system. As chair of Kinship her hard work and dedication has helped to enhance the circumstances in which children and carers may find themselves in isolated circumstances. She is an inspiration for the Kinship Care mission and for all who are involved or have used their services. Using her own personal experiences of growing up within the care service, her passion for the role, dedication, commitment and desire has helped others in keeping them out of the system focusing on keeping families together. I am delighted that she has been given this recognition of Woman of the Year 2014.”

Another high-profile guest on the night was local woman Lilian Seenoi, who was also in celebratory mood, having just returned earlier in the day from London, where she won the ‘Women on the Move’ award - part of the Women of the World Festival activities.

Lilian Seenoi, a refugee from Kenya, was recognised as Woman of the Year for her work setting up North-West Migrants Forum – the only migrant forum in Derry/Londonderry, from her kitchen table. Lilian sought asylum in the UK after her work rescuing young girls from early marriage put her life in danger. Her work in Northern Ireland now brings together diverse migrant groups and local communities who have suffered years of tension. She received the award at a glittering gala in London from freelance journalist, writer and broadcaster at the BBC, Samira Ahmed and Livia Firth, Creative Director of Eco Age Ltd.

At Friday night’s event in the City Hotel Lilian quoted from the Migrant Manifesto, saying: “I have witnessed how fear creates boundaries, how boundaries create hate and how hate only serves the oppressors. I do understand that migrants and non-migrants are interconnected. When the rights of migrants are denied, the rights of citizens are at risk. Dignity has no nationality.”

Category winners of DCC Women of the Year Awards were: Niree McMorris, Contribution to Women’s Community Development; Margaret Semple, Contribution to Health; Dawn McLaughlin, Contribution to Enterprise; Georgina Kee-McCarter and Arlene McLaughlin, joint winners of Contribution to Community Relations; Joanne Scahill, Contribution to Community Safety; Karen Clift, Contribution to the Arts; Caroline Roddy, Contribution to Formal and Informal Education; Rosemary O’Donnell, Contribution to Older People; Muriel Wallace, Contribution to Youth; Kiera Coyle, Contribution to Childcare; Liadhan McCourt, Contribution to Caring; Adele Darby, Women Living with a Disability; Shanagh Henderson, Contribution for Young Women, and, for this first time this year, Contribution to Trade Unions, sponsored by Unison, was won by Ann Donnelly.

In his address the Mayor thanked everyone involved in making the Woman of the Year awards a success and paid tribute to the nominees. He said each played an important role in supporting people across the city.

Joanna Boyd, Women’s Officer with Derry City Council and co-ordinator of the awards wished everyone a happy and peaceful International Women’s Day and thanked the Mayor and Mayoress for attending.

She said that it was the seventh year of the event adding: “Although there are winners in each category I feel that if you were nominated for an award you should be very proud as people within your community or organisation recognised the work you do for others and society in general. All too often the work of women goes unnoticed and this is an opportunity for us at Derry City Council to recognise and celebrate these achievements.”

Later in the evening Joanna proposed the vote of thanks to the judges, Council staff, business that sponsored the event and the women who performed front of house duties, the compere for the evening, hotel staff and management as well as the musicians and entertainers.