Happy Mother’s Day, Avia!
–and all those wonderful mothers who manage to manage
IT WAS in the early 70s, during my childhood days in The Ancient County, that I first met Avia Maria Lindie. Back then, she was a class ahead of me at the Iris Mentore Kindergarten School in Savannah Park, New Amsterdam. We played and worked together, which is how I came to realize that my colleague was not only a good manager, but she also possessed great leadership qualities. Whenever we happened to play school, she always wanted to be the head-teacher, and would settle for no other role.
This came as no surprise to us kids, as both her parents were leaders in their own right. Her mother, Ms. Constance “Connie’ VanBrooke, was a professional nurse at the New Amsterdam Hospital, while her dad, Mr. Dennis Joseph, was a Dispenser at the very institution.
She would later attend the Mission Chapel Congregational School, now New Amsterdam Primary, before moving on to Berbice High after writing what was then the Common Entrance examinations. At Berbice High, Avia contributed immensely to the school’s netball, volleyball and cycling teams.
And on concluding her secondary education, she did a number of correspondence courses, at which she was successful, which no doubt helped her land a job at the Berbice Educational Institute as an Integrated Science and Spanish teacher.
She then took up employment at the Jim Bacchus Travel Service, managing that entity until she migrated to the USA in 1995. On her return, she started managing the Metro Stationery and Computer Supplies New Amsterdam branch, a position she still holds to this day.
Now married to professional artist, Clayton Lindie, Avia, who is an ‘only child’, has four children of her own.
She also enjoys volunteering at the Sherlinks Guy Care Foundation, where she has been assisting in the facilitation of all the secondary schools in the Berbice area receiving books under the Readers’ Programme.
That aside, she has been a part of the local organizing committee of the New Amsterdam Primary/Secondary School Foundation (NAPSS), which promotes the schools’ football programme in secondary schools in Berbice, and she has also been one of the Online administrators of the FaceBook group of New Amsterdam International Inc.
Asked how she finds the time to fulfil all her obligations, Avia simply smiled and said she owes it all to effective planning and scheduling of her time.
She went on to explain that once she sticks to the time allotted each activity, she is able to meet all her deadlines.
Today, she’s still the same humble, religious and community-minded person I befriended many moons ago, except now she’s a mother as well. Happy Mother’s Day, Avia!