– at inaugural lecture at Umana Yana
AN inaugural lecture organised by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport to honour the life and work of the late Minister within the Ministry of Education, Dr. Desrey Caesar-Fox, was held on Monday at the Umana Yana in Kingston. The event attracted a number of prominent persons, and reflected on Dr. Fox’s many accomplishments and her passion for the development and preservation of Amerindian languages.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, in delivering brief remarks, spoke of the work the late minister did, much of which is part of the country’s rich history.
PM. Hinds said more can and will be done by Government to promote Amerindian heritage and language, as it was a passion of Dr. Fox. “We are very proud of her achievements… Guyana has had a great loss with her demise,” he said.
Dr Fox succumbed to her injuries after she was involved in an automobile accident in December 2009.
Presidential Advisor on Governance, Gail Teixeira, stated that the lecture, which is the first of many, was important as it allowed persons to reflect on the important achievements of Dr. Fox.
She added that there was important work which was started by Dr. Fox, and which needed to be completed; and she called on the students and lecturers of cultural linguistics and anthropology to continue Dr Fox’s work.
At the time of her death, Dr. Fox, along with Ms Teixeira and Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, was in the process of translating the National Anthem into the nine Amerindian languages.
Thus far, only six languages have been completed, and Ms Teixeira committed, on behalf of the Government, to ensuring that the remainder was completed, and in a timely manner.
Born on January 2, 1956 at Waramadong Village, Region 7, Desrey Clementine Caesar attended the Waramadong Primary School, and the Campbellville Government School, and then briefly the Georgetown Seventh-day Adventist Academy.
She was awarded a nursing scholarship in 1973, and was a trained midwife at the Georgetown Hospital School of Nursing. She married a few years later.
In 1977, she joined the University of Guyana (UG) as a junior researcher attached to a special project referred to as the Amerindian Languages Project. She continued serving within that unit until it evolved into the present Amerindian Research Unit.
The focus of her research was cross-cultural, resulting in data being collected and analyzed on a wide range of Amerindian issues and situations in Guyana, such as their pre-history, present history, spirituality, demography, geography, rites and rituals, kinship networks, language, music and general aspects of their way of life.
She secured a Master of Arts in Environmental Anthropology from the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom in 1997, then a PhD in Linguistics from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 2003, and a Master of Arts in Linguistics at the same university in 2003.
She also obtained a BSc in Sociology from the University of Guyana.
She was the Curator of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, lectured in Linguistics and Amerindian Studies at UG, and taught special courses at the Universities of Oregon and Rice.