Late Parliamentarian and founding member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Sheila Holder, was yesterday eulogized when family members and friends assembled at St. George\u2019s Cathedral, Georgetown, to reflect on her life\u2019s works.<\/p>\n
Those in attendance included AFC leaders Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan; APNU Leader David Granger; Former First Lady Varshnie Singh; Minister of Human Services and Social Security Jennifer Webster; Major General (Ret\u2019d) Joe Singh; Former Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manniram Prashad; and Chief Planning Officer of the Ministry of Education Evelyn Hamilton among other personalities.<\/p>\n
Trotman quoted the last stanza of Maya Angelou\u2019s poem \u2018Phenomenal Woman\u2019 and proclaimed that those words best describe the late political stalwart.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you understand just why my head\u2019s not bowed.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t shout or jump about or have to talk real loud.<\/p>\n
When you see me passing it ought to make you proud.<\/p>\n
I say, it\u2019s in the click of my heels, the bend in my hair;<\/p>\n
the palm of my hand, the need of my care,<\/p>\n
\u2018cause I\u2019m a woman phenomenally.<\/p>\n
Phenomenal woman, that\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He further stated that Mrs. Holder distinguished herself as a legislator and representative of the people in the National Assembly while drawing attention to several pertinent issues she addressed at that forum to enhance the democratic process.<\/p>\n
He drew reference to a motion in December 2008 where Mrs. Holder sought to broaden electronic communication for the people of Region 10.<\/p>\n
Trotman added that in February 2011 she took the Government to task on the issue of Good Governance. He quoted her as saying \u201cImagine they are telling us that they have adopted the principal of inclusivity when large sections of our society continue to express feelings of exclusion, describe their experience of discrimination, and are being denied fair treatment and equal treatment and opportunities in their profession and business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expressing similar sentiments, Ramjattan asserted that Mrs. Holder wanted AFC to do more in Parliament. \u201cShe did not realize the results of the election (because she died before) that we will play a greater role in ensuring better answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramjattan stressed that with an astute understanding of what Guyanese wanted and deserved she worked in Parliament through questions and motions. He suggested that, perhaps, because of Mrs. Holder\u2019s good representation and constant communication with the people of Region Eight, AFC gained the most votes from that district.<\/p>\n
Her husband, Noel Holder, revealed that prior to Mrs. Holder\u2019s political life, her focus was on home making \u2013 raising three children (Yale, Sheldon and Kaila), and coping with their educational and nutritional needs at a time when food shortages and declining academia were overwhelming the Guyanese population.<\/p>\n
Mr. Holder recounted that she first entered politics in 1997 when she contested national elections as Vice-Presidential candidate to Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, in an alliance of Labour, Citizens and the Working People\u2019s Alliance. In 2001, she represented the citizen\u2019s arm of the alliance, and was sworn in as an elected member of the Eighth Parliament.<\/p>\n
He mentioned that she later joined the AFC and after only 10 months of intense work, the AFC secured five seats in the National Assembly in the National and Regional Elections of August 2006. There she sat as a Member of Parliament in the Ninth Parliament.<\/p>\n
In her memory her sisters, Paulette Gooding, Angela Rickford, and Lynsyd Holder established the Shelia Holder Community Service Fund. The Fund will partner with a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization in Guyana, legally constituted under a Board of Trustees to make an award annually to a project that addresses a specific injustice in Guyana \u2013 one that is committed to community care and public service.<\/p>\n
Shelia Valerie Holder nee Marshall was born on February 7, 1946 and passed away on November 20, 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Late Parliamentarian and founding member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Sheila Holder, was yesterday eulogized when family members and friends assembled at St. George\u2019s Cathedral, Georgetown, to reflect on her life\u2019s works. Those in attendance included AFC leaders Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan; APNU Leader David Granger; Former First Lady Varshnie Singh; Minister of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latestnews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image001-2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4F7T1-sheila","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}