IN recognition of her immeasurable contribution to her nation, the life and work of the late Minister in the Ministry of Education Desrey Fox will now be honoured, as President Granger yesterday announced that the Waramadong Secondary School will be named after her. The President was at the time addressing the 2015 National Tosaho’s Council meeting at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.
“I wish to reiterate that education is important to everything that we do, and this morning, I wish to pay particular tribute to those who have been produced in our indigenous communities. But particularly, I want to recognise one who has left an indelible mark on education; an indelible mark on the indigenous People in this country,” President Granger said.
The President told the gathering of indigenous leaders that it was the late Minister Fox who was instrumental in bringing the Akawaio culture into the mainstream of the education system in Guyana; and that it was for this reason, and her many other contributions that the Administration is pleased to honour her.
Asked to comment on the proposed recognition, the late minister’s son Mensah Fox said the renaming of a school in his mother’s honour is “a big step taken by the Government” and one that finds favour with the Fox family.
“We are extremely proud of her achievements, and it brings us great happiness,” Mensah said, adding: “I know there is a lot that she has done, and a lot that she had in store to do, but this recognition is one that we appreciate.”
Noting that his mother was a student of the Waramadong Secondary School and a daughter of the community, Mensah said that not only is it a fitting tribute, but something that the people of Waramadong will cherish dearly.
He also believes that a lot of his mother’s unfinished work will now see the light of day. “Yes, I do believe that a lot of what she had planned would now be realised by this Government,” he said.
The late minister, who was also a former Curator of the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, died on December 11, 2009, aged 54, following a vehicular accident. At the time of her death, Dr. Fox, with the help of others, was in the process of translating the National Anthem into the nine Amerindian languages.
Born 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 what is now the Amerindian Research Unit.
The focus of her research was cross-cultural, resulting in data being collected and analysed 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 ways of life.
She obtained 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. She also pursued a Master of Arts in Linguistics at the same university in 2003. She did her BSc in Sociology at the University of Guyana. (Ministry of the Presidency)