ANGELA Phillips is a 60-year-old member of the Village Council and the Chairperson of the Women’s Club of Karrau Village. She is passionate about community-based and women’s development, so she volunteers her time to many projects.

The mother of five is originally from Anna Regina, Essequibo Coast, but her family moved to Karrau when she was just two years old.

Her mother was living with her grandmother in Karrau and they relocated because of the peacegul way of life in the village.

She told the Pepperpot Magazine that Karrau is a very safe place to live and the people would come together in a flash to do projects and pull off any event.

“Living here is neither hard nor easy, but it is based on what you do to earn and how you choose to life[sic],” she said.

Phillips added that the cost of living is high and at times it is challenging to make ends meet in terms of finance, since she doesn’t have a permanent job.

She spends a lot of time volunteering at the Women’s Club to equip women and young girls with life skills to become empowered to establish their own small businesses to earn.She reported that they have classes in floral arrangement, craft, and sewing and when the rehabilitation is completed, they will have a kitchen to do cooking courses at the Women’s Club.

Phillips told the Pepperpot Magazine that at the Women’s Club space is limited and they used to host sewing classes at the pavilion at the community centre ground, but due to the rainy conditions, it is not suitable.

Then COVID-19 happened, and they had to discontinue sewing classes and they began utilising the benab, but then it became infested with bats and they had to abandon it.

She related that they have four sewing machines and they are in need of a trainer for the Women’s Club.

Phillips was once a phonics teacher and worked with Hope Foundation in Bartica and she used to be a farmer.

“Presently, we are mobilising the people to host our Heritage Day celebration but the night before, we will have a Gospel Concert to usher in the heritage observance, so we have a lot to do,” she said.

Phillips added that being a volunteer is her way of giving back and it feels good to be involved in community-based projects that ultimately benefit the people.

Bush Doctor
She explained that she became an alternative medicine healer, utilising herbs with which she is familiar to make a concoction which she says helped many locals recover from COVID-19.

It was then that she decided to put her skills to work and infused herbal medicine which was distributed to villagers, who were ill with COVID-19.

Of the people infected with the virus, only one person was admitted to the hospital, and another was very low at their home and they all recovered after using the herbal medicine made by Phillips.

She would also make cold medicine regularly for the people in the community.

Phillips explained that it is a variety of herbs found around the village that was used to make the herbal potion and it is a thing she learned from her elders, being her mother, who also learned from her mother.

She added that bush medicine making is a family tradition among the women in the family and it was passed on to her.

Phillips told the Pepperpot Magazine that herbal medicine is not a big secret but one must know what they are doing before even attempting to become a bush doctor.

She stated that helping people is a way of people in Karrau Village and she is always willing to boil up a potion to assist anyone in need, especially if that person is sick.

“A family member had an accident and his foot was broken and he was just lying in the hospital and my mom told us to bring him home and she began giving him the herbal medicine treatment and he recovered fully. He was able to walk normal again without any difficulties, so we believe in what we do in terms of herbal medicine,” she said.