Introducing the Willikies Education Foundation

Willikies Educational Foundation, based in London, was formed because I was inspired by my grandmother, Alicia Susanna Otto’s (Gretta Otto) dedication and drive to see fairness and justice in the community of Willikies on the island of Antigua and Barbuda in the late 1930’s. My grandmother lobbied for a much-needed school to be opened in the small village of Willikies and she was one of the founding members of Willikies Primary School, now renamed: Nelvie N Gore Primary School, which I was privileged to attend for two years of my education.

In my research of my grandmother’s historical past, I was so impressed with what I had discovered that I contacted the current Head Principal of the school to enquire whether there was any way in which I could support the school now. I was informed that there are indeed on-going pressures and disadvantages that the children and teachers face every day.

During this pandemic, many of the young children are restricted in terms of having access to resources within the school and at home, including lack of teacher contact during lockdown periods. This opportunity has come about for me to contribute to help reduce these drawbacks in their educational progress, by providing resources like books and stationery supplies, projectors and laptops etc. The future purpose of this foundation is to ultimately provide support to schools in Antigua and Barbuda and the wider Caribbean.

We are working with the local community by building relationships with local companies and community groups, one of them being the Willikies Community Group who we have been in discussions with. We thought that a Newsletter would be an ideal way to regularly update our members and followers on the projects we are embarking on. The Newsletter will be available online and as a hard copy distributed quarterly, and it will also feature additional articles concerning education and culture of the Islands. We hope you can come along this journey with us.