Dear Editor,
Recently one of Georgetown’s unsung heroines in the struggle for women’s emancipation and democracy with justice, Jennifer Sobers, passed away after a protracted series of ailments including twin surgical interventions within the space of a year, as well as Covid-19. She was if nothing else, strong, clear sighted and perhaps even ‘ghetto- wise’ based on her lived experience in the location of Tiger Bay, South Cummingsburg. She was one of the Vieira’s – a family of working class origins who lived at one time in the Fort/ Barrack Street neighbourhood, Kingston, Georgetown. In fact after attending the Sacred Heart Primary in Main Street, Cummingsburg, she would have had some ‘affinities’ with charitable community interventions subjectively conceived for underprivileged sectors.
This was quite apart from other parish events that would coincide with Catholic as well as other secular observances at Lent – Yuletide. To anyone who knew ‘Sister Jennifer’ there was always an aura of simplicity that at all times was tethered to a grass-roots understanding of what is right for the community. Her expectations as a mother were largely determined by survival skills one had to acquire to be part of Tiger Bay, the Holmes street /Rosemary Lane location with a reputation for seafarers licentious behaviour and dwellings that served as shebeens, ‘short time’ rooming as well as rum and spirit outlets. She had 15 children and an estimated 30+ grandchildren and 4 great grands. Her allegiance towards women’s emancipation was inseparable from her utter condemnation of the Burnham PNC dictatorship even though during the 1960s ”Troubles” she would have chosen to align with the Silent Majority(SM).
According to her husband, Victor, his partner was “a wife…a brother…a colleague and a mother to me”. And it is that existential trait all Guyanese women must come to terms with in contemporary Guyana; perhaps were circumstances different in terms of access to overseas medical consultancies and surgeries Sister Jennifer Sobers would have lived, would have survived into her 80s. There is a tremendous degree of relevance, of mediation that can attributed to this brave Guyanese. May her Soul “repose en Paix” (May her soul rest in Peace)
Sincerely,
Lawrence Eddi Rodney
