SHE grew up at a time when the gender disparities were more evident in families and were accepted as norms. Especially in the community where she lived domestic violence was rampant. So from an early age, she became very conscious about the violence and the injustices in all of this and was determined to fight it.

Meet beautiful 52-year-old Patricia Indrawatie Sheerattan-Bisnauth, called Pat for short. Her mom, Rebecca, is originally from Crabwood Creek and her dad, Colin, from Plaisance, East Coast Demerara.
Patricia was born in Skeldon but raised in Ogle. Her dad died in 1981 but her mom is still around.
She attended Cummingslodge Primary and Secondary Schools and then went to study in Jamaica at the United Theological College of the West Indies. She went to Sweden to do gender and management and also completed studies in social work at the University of Guyana.
Patricia pursued her studies at Princeton University in the United States and did a further degree in religion and society. “So I have done a bit of schooling,” she acknowledged in an interview with Pepperpot recently.
Furthermore, she is a Minister of Religion at the Guyana Presbyterian Church and has three churches on the East Coast Demerara. She was the first woman to be ordained in this church as a minister, she disclosed.
Patricia has worked with Red Thread, the Council of Churches, the Guyana Presbyterian Church, and the Family Life Commission. She is currently the Executive Director of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA).

Having visited almost 50 countries and worked in some of them, Patricia has found that Guyana is where she can share in celebrating diversity as a people. “I haven’t been to another place where people of different religions can live peacefully. We have a lot to celebrate as a people,” she said.

To make a difference
Patricia is very outgoing and enjoys conversations with people, especially those who like to explore life. “I am also a justice seeking person, justice aiming for peace,” she explained.
Perhaps this kind of personality made her question the injustices she was seeing while growing up.
“I grew up very conscious about the inequalities. I was very determined that I will not accept this and so I fought it in my personal life. My father didn’t encourage any of that in our home,” she explained.
And so Patricia was 19 when she decided to study theology in Jamaica. “This included studying a lot about the social issues or realities. I therefore saw the need to be more involved in what is happening in the society. That’s why I went on to study social work.
“I did think that I can make a difference in terms of helping to create a more wholesome situation. I’m really in my heart committed to issues of justice, of reconciliation. Wherever I saw that something wasn’t right, I could not turn a blind eye to it. It wasn’t in my nature to do that,” she expressed.

Losing her other half

Patricia was married to former Education Minister, Presbyterian priest and University of Guyana Lecturer, Dr. Dale Bisnauth, for 28 years. He died last year April in the Caribbean Heart Institute at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
His death has deeply affected the family and has thrown life off course for quite a while for them. Patricia believes that their daughter, Krysta, was more affected and took a longer time to come around.
According to her, he was ailing for a while but was managing well. This is why his death came quite unexpectedly. “We thought he had the flu but he was really having a slow heart attack. The heart attack started the night before.”
“He had contributed quite a lot. Many people loved him. He always had a heart for people who were poor and struggling and never failed to talk about his poor background,” Patricia fondly recalled.
By Telesha Ramnarine