– WPA pays tribute to activist, late member

President David Granger has extended condolences to the friends, relatives and other acquaintances of the late Andaiye, A.A.– women’s activist and former executive member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).
Andaiye , nee Sandra Williams, died on Friday at the age of 77, after a prolonged battle with cancer. She was a founding member of Red Thread Guyana in 1986 and was also an executive member of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA).

In a separate release, Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo extended sympathy to the family and friends of Andaiye.
“Andaiye was a champion of the working people and a model fighter for women empowerment. She would be remembered best for her frontline place in the struggle against authoritarian rule,” the Prime Minister expressed.

According to a release from the Ministry of the Presidency, Andaiye was also a founder of the Guyana Cancer Society and the Cancer Survivors Action Group. She worked with the Women and Development Unit of the University of the West Indies (WAND) from 1987 to 1992, and from 1987 to 1996 with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). In 1997, she was awarded the Golden Arrow of Achievement (AA).

In a statement, the WPA said that although Andaiye had not been active in the party in recent years, she remained an important source of wisdom and advice to the leadership. “Her passing is a blow to the movement for change and transformation in Guyana and beyond—until the very end she remained a committed soldier of the cause of social justice, women and children rights, working class liberation and ethnic and racial equality,” the party said.

It said the body and Guyana has lost one of the “brightest lights that emerged from our Guyanese and Caribbean belly,” and the WPA noted that it is eternally grateful that she walked, marched, struggled and grounded with it, as the body fashioned one of the most remarkable chapters in our country’s history. “We give thanks for her life and contributions,” the party noted.

The WPA said Andaiye started her public life as a schoolteacher and foreign service worker. She is remembered as part of a group of young radical educators who attempted to infuse a new national and revolutionary praxis into the then education system. Although she left the profession, she never stopped being a teacher. The party said that her contributions to public education during her years as a WPA activist-leader and later on in Red Thread are testimony to the role of education in Andaiye’s political praxis.

“Sister Andaiye will also be remembered as a Black Power activist who saw the movement towards Black pride and dignity as a necessary step in our independence journey,” the party said.

She changed her name from Sandra Williams to Andaiye and wore her hair in the Afro-style of the day—these two symbols remained part of her identity for the rest of her life,” the party said.

She returned to Guyana in 1977 at the urging of her school friends, Walter Rodney and Rupert Roopnarine, both of whom had become associated with the newly formed WPA. She joined the party and played pivotal roles in its development as one of the most formidable radical parties in the Caribbean. She was a leader, thinker and worker of the highest order and helped to make the WPA and Guyana an oasis of radical and revolutionary thought and action.

Andaiye served the party in various capacities, but it was as a writer and editor of the party’s publications and as its International Secretary that she made her most definitive contributions. Her penchant for detail, her sense of history and her analytical mind made her an intellectual giant in a party and movement blessed with rare leadership talent. “But she was also a foot soldier who walked the streets, roads and alleys across Guyana to spread the politics of change and transformation,” the WPA noted.

As WPA mourns her passing, the party calls on Guyana and the Caribbean to emulate the example of the Andaiyes of the region.” She died like most revolutionaries in our country and region—forgotten and marginalized by the political elites whose power came from the struggles and sacrifices of these very forgotten souls,” the party said.

According to the WPA, the party is comforted by the fact that “Sister Andaiye died knowing that she selflessly gave her life to the service of country, region and humanity. In her name and by her example, we forge on. We salute you Sister Andaiye,” the party stated.