THE Soroptimist International Club of Jamaica (Kingston) has named co-founder and executive director of Kingston Creative, Andrea Dempster Chung, as the 2023 recipient of its annual Stella Gregory Award. The award is presented annually to an outstanding woman who has excelled in her chosen field and has contributed to national development.

Dempster Chung is being recognised for her outstanding and pioneering leadership of Kingston Creative, an NGO that uses art to achieve social and economic transformation. Kingston Creative is helping to open up access to new economic opportunities for creatives, and transforming downtown Kingston through promotion of the arts and development of its creative economy.

The award will be presented during the club’s charter anniversary luncheon and Stella Gregory Awards ceremony to be held on November 25.

Soroptimist International is a global volunteer movement for women in business, management, and the professions, who work together to transform the lives of women and girls. The Stella Gregory Award was inaugurated in 1976 to honour the club’s founder Stella Gregory, who introduced Soroptimist International as the first service club for business and professional women in Jamaica.

Dempster Chung is widely recognised for her design of the Art District and social and economic transformation programme for downtown Kingston. She is also founder of the independent Bookophilia Bookstore & Cafe, which promotes Caribbean writers and literature and hosts arts and literary events. She currently serves on the board of the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust, an NGO that manages the Blue and John Crow Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She also serves on two international advisory boards — the Global Creative Economy Council and the Global Cultural Districts Network.