Twiggs, a Springfield city councilor, will receive the Ubora Award, and Lawes, a recent graduate of Central High School, will receive the Ahadi Youth Award.
E. Henry Twiggs and Dana Adrianna Lawes will be honored by the African Hall Subcommittee of the Springfield Museums with the Ubora and Ahadi Youth awards, respectively.SPRINGFIELD — The African Hall Subcommittee of the Springfield Museums will present the 21st annual Ubora Award and the fourth annual Ahadi Youth Award Sept. 15 at 6 p.m., at the Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts at the Quadrangle.
City Councilor E. Henry Twiggs will receive the Ubora Award, and Dana Adrianna Lawes will receive the Ahadi Youth Award.
The Ubora Award, which means excellence in Swahili, is presented to an African-American who has made a significant contribution to the Greater Springfield area.
Twiggs, Springfield’s Ward 4 city councilor, has been active in Democratic Party politics at every level for more than 50 years.
As a civil rights organizer, Twiggs was one of the people who crossed the Edmund Pettis Bridge during the Selma to Montgomery, Ala., March. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and strove to keep Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream alive through his work on the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign march on Washington.
A proud Shriner, Twiggs has held many significant posts within Masonic lodges, and was recognized as Master Mason of the Year in 1999 and 2003. He has also served as chairman of the McKnight Neighborhood Council, president of Harambee Holiday, Inc., and was a founding member of 5A, the youth mentoring organization that uses sports to provide academic assistance and leadership development to young people.
The Ahadi Youth Award, which means promise, is presented to an African-American young person who demonstrates strong character, leadership, academic achievement, and future potential.
Dana Lawes, the Ahadi Youth Award winner, is a 2012 graduate of Springfield Central High School and is attending Newbury College in Brookline this fall.
In high school, she challenged herself by taking honors and advanced placement courses and earned a 4.2 grade point average. Her success was recognized when she was selected for the MassMutual Academic Achievers and the National Honor Society.
Dana’s values are deeply grounded in her family and faith. She and her two siblings are the children of Jamaican immigrant parents. Her mother instilled in Dana a strong work ethic and the commitment to focus on her goals. Dana completed a Teen Mini Medical School program at Baystate Hospital and participated after school for three years in the Baystate Springfield Educational Partnership, where she interned in the nutrition, injury prevention, environmental services and distribution services departments. Through this experience, she determined that she would like to investigate a business career in either the medical or hospitality fields.
Dana is an active participant in her church and is a volunteer for the Springfield Rescue Mission which serves homeless people in the city. As part of a 2010 church youth group initiative, “Youth Against Suffering,” she worked on a campaign to raise money and awareness for a group called Ending Now Violence Against Women.
The Ubora and Ahadi Award presentations will be followed by a reception at the Springfield Science Museum across the Quadrangle.
Admission to the event is $15 for adults and $10 for children under 12. For information or advance reservations, call (413) 263-6800, ext. 325.