DAME Olga Lopes-Seale, founder of the Radio Needy Children’s Party, died yesterday at age 92 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados.           Olga Lopes-Seale DA, GCM, MBE, BBS, was born on December 26, 1918, in Guyana, as Olga Lopes, one of three survivors in a family of nine siblings. She grew up in Brickdam, Georgetown. She became the first female radio newscaster in Guyana, before the era of television, when radio personalities were widely known and very popular – almost iconic figures, and worked for many years as a broadcaster for Radio Demerara, where she acquired the nickname “Auntie Olga.”
Always passionate about helping people, Olga started the “Radio Demerara Needy Children’s Party” in December of 1954, working tirelessly for twelve consecutive years to help the vulnerable in society through this organisation, which increasingly gained in popularity, to the extent where it has now become a national institution. However, after her marriage to Barbadian Dick Seale, who had been employed with Bookers in the British Guiana sugar industry, she emigrated to his home country in 1966, living in a bungalow in the Black Rock area of St. Michael parish about 15 minutes drive west of the capital Bridgetown, where she continued living, even after her husband had passed on.
In Barbados she started work at the only radio station in the island, the Barbados Redifussion Company Limited, which was subsequently renamed Starcom Network. A gifted singer, she was known as “the Vera Lynn of the Caribbean” in the 1940s and 50s.
In that island, she continued her charitable work and started a Needy Children’s Fund in Barbados in 1969.
Although her husband died in 1989 she sustained her productive life, engaging in many professional and charitable activities.
In 2005 she was made a Dame of St. Andrew.
On December 9, 2010, she fell at her home and broke her hip in a couple of places, leaving her unable to continue her charity work for the Needy Children’s Fund.
During her years as a news anchor – both in Guyana and Barbados, she covered many history-making events and was conferred with many awards for her professional work, as well as her charitable initiatives.
In an earlier interview with a fellow media operative when she was age 83 Olga said, “It was a tough grind for us in those early days of radio. Some of my most rewarding times were of course helping the needy kids. As radio journalists doing interviews with people, for example, you listened to what the other person was saying. This didn’t mean you didn’t have opinions of your own, but a host shouldn’t run away with the show as if it is his or her own. And, of course, we adhered to a strict code of professional ethics. We didn’t stir up racial hatred or slander people’s reputation, as I hear some presenters and moderators are doing in Guyana today. I find it is so easy to dwell on the negative, which is bad. There are always positive things in life and these are always worth highlighting,”
Her media colleague continued: ‘From early, she acquired a habit which was to serve her in good stead in the years ahead, and which she recommends to every boy and girl wherever they are – reading books.
She reasons: “Reading is essential if you are to become a fully rounded person. I love to read. I still have my collection of Royal Reader books.”
Auntie Olga still keeps abreast of developments in Guyana. Shortly after Dr Cheddi Jagan became President she made a point to go along with hundreds of ‘Guyanese-Bajans’ to hear him speak at a public meeting.
And she continues to be worried about the way some broadcasters in her dear birthplace are denigrating the profession.
Noted the citation for the induction into the Caribbean Broadcasting Hall of Fame:
“For more than two generations you strove to bring broadcasting into the community and the community into broadcasting. In the process you nourished the one and elevated the other. In these days when we as broadcasters all too often lose sight of our higher purpose, the example of your life will surely remind us of the best that we can be.”’
Bernice Mansell, another amazing person, who is current head of the charitable institution, the “Bernice Mansell Foundation, was the colleague to whom Olga entrusted her baby “Radio Needy Children’s Fund”
Bernice, who kept in touch with her friend of decades, said of Olga: “She was a generous, kind-hearted and compassionate person, whom I think of as the Mother Theresa of Guyana. Almost to the day she died she was a real servant of God. She always tried her utmost to ensure that the poor were fed and clothed, that children were provided for, especially at Christmas.
She has achieved much in her lifetime and was most beloved in Barbados and they honoured her over and over again with many awards and citations. Although I am saddened at her passing, I am comforted that she has lived a full, good life and has left her mark in the hearts of the people for who gave abundantly of herself.”
Olga chose the theme song for the Radio Needy Children’s Fund when she established the organization in 1954: “If I can help somebody with a word or song/ If I can show somebody that he is travelling wrong/ If I can help somebody as I pass along/ Then my living shall not be in vain.
Olga’s living has certainly not been in vain.