By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: To acknowledge the achievements made by lesser known heroes and icons of the State in various fields, Avenues (a Shillong based institute for finishing and communication skills academy) is hosting the first ever Meghalaya Youth Icon Awards sometime in September.
The event is being organised to mark the tenth anniversary of Avenues this year. “Our awards are a genuine attempt to recognise and acknowledge the work of lesser known individuals whohave charted out new courses in different fields without the fear of failure and are therefore heroes and icons of the State,” Avenues Group Managing Director (MD) Mark Stone Laitphlang told reporters at the press conference here on Tuesday.
The Academy proposes to felicitate those achievers in the fields of entrepreneurship, social work, education, visual arts, advocacy, media, citizen journalism, creative and performing arts, tradition and culture, tourism, sports and conservation, Laitphlang informed.
As part of this event, the Avenues Group MD informed that they are also planning to host the first State Youth Icon Award of the Year.
“We have already launched a campaign in partnership with with Red FM 93.5 and local English news channel Media Plus, to discover the state’s first youth icon awards of the year to encourage participation from youth, young adults and concerned citizens,” he said.
While informing that the other awards would be decided by a group of panelists nominated for these awards, Laitphlang said that the decision to select the state’s first youth icon awards of the year would be left to the public at large.
“The people are free to nominate any individual whom they feel deserve to become the State youth icon of the year,” Laitphlang said.
According to Laitphlang, the award will be decided through votes cast via SMS in two phases and would be presented during the youth icon awards.
“The phase-I launched on July 29 requires interested voters to send in up to five votes per mobile number for their icon of the year to 58585. Users are required to send in their nominations in the format “SH ICON (IconName)” by August 15,” he said while adding that after this, a list of ten names would be forwarded to the group of panelists.
“The group of panelists would finally short-list five names from among the ten names. In the second phase, people would be given the opportunity to cast a single vote through SMS, for the Avenues youth icon of the Year,” the Avenues Group MD said. Informing that a group of panellists-jury for the award was constituted in June last, he said that the panel is led by former Home Minister Robert G Lyngdoh.
The other members in the panelist includes Martin Luther Christian University vice chancellor Glenn Kharkongor, Padmashree and editor of The Shillong Times Patricia Mukhim, director IIVET IGNOU AS Guha, ICARE president Toki Blah besides other members.