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Memorial service held for AFC stalwart Sheila Holder
Late Parliamentarian and founding member of the Alliance For Change (AFC),
The Late Mrs. Holder’s relatives listen to one of the glowing tributes during yesterday’s service
Sheila Holder, was yesterday eulogized when family members and friends assembled at St. George’s Cathedral, Georgetown, to reflect on her life’s works.
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’d) 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.
Trotman quoted the last stanza of Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Phenomenal Woman’ and proclaimed that those words best describe the late political stalwart.
“Now you understand just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing it ought to make you proud.
I say, it’s in the click of my heels, the bend in my hair;
the palm of my hand, the need of my care,
‘cause I’m a woman phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, that’s me.”
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.
He drew reference to a motion in December 2008 where Mrs. Holder sought to broaden electronic communication for the people of Region 10.
Trotman added that in February 2011 she took the Government to task on the issue of Good Governance. He quoted her as saying “Imagine 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.”
Expressing similar sentiments, Ramjattan asserted that Mrs. Holder wanted AFC to do more in Parliament. “She did not realize the results of the election (because she died before) that we will play a greater role in ensuring better answers.”
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’s good representation and constant communication with the people of Region Eight, AFC gained the most votes from that district.
Her husband, Noel Holder, revealed that prior to Mrs. Holder’s political life, her focus was on home making – 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.
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’s Alliance. In 2001, she represented the citizen’s arm of the alliance, and was sworn in as an elected member of the Eighth Parliament.
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.
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 – one that is committed to community care and public service.
Shelia Valerie Holder nee Marshall was born on February 7, 1946 and passed away on November 20, 2011.
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