Dame nita barrow biography
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Dame Nita Barrow is regarded as one of the Caribbean’s most outstanding leaders, admired for her indomitable spirit and her ability to empower others. Her diverse career path spanned many years of service as a nurse, an adult educator and a diplomat, both in the Caribbean and internationally. Her accomplishments and contribution were particularly remarkable considering that she was born in an era when it was neither common nor easy for women to attain influential positions in society.
She began her career as a nurse practitioner in Barbados and rose to the top of her field in the region through her leadership and professional skills. In 1954, she became the first West Indian Matron of the University College Hospital (UCH), Jamaica and the first Principal Nursing Officer of Jamaica in 1956. She also served as Nursing Adviser for the Caribbean Area to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for five years, and a health consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) for 15 year
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Accomplishments:
By the time she was appointed Convener for the United Nations "Forum '85: a World Meeting for Women," (in Nairobi, Kenya 1985) Nita Barrow was an accomplished hand at supporting women and heading their worldwide organizations. She would go on to become the first woman Ambassador of Barbados to the United Nations, 1986-1990, and later the first woman ever to be appointed Governor General of that Commonwealth Carribean country for five years until her untimely death in 1995. Indeed, her record of service has been dscribed as "pure sterling" and her memorial services in Bridgetown, Barbados and New York were overflow capacity tributes. For women around the world, she represented what a community-conscious, educated woman can achieve: leadership in the service of community, women, country, and indeed all humanity, working within and outside the United Nations system.
Biography:
Ruth Nita Barrow was born on November 15, 1916 on the island
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Barrow, Nita
November 15, 1916
December 19, 1995
The sister of one Barbados' national heroes, the cousin of a second, and the niece of a third, Ruth Nita Barrow was born at Nestfield, Saint Lucy, Barbados, the second child and first daughter of the fem children born to Reginald and Ruth O'Neale Barrow. Her father, an Anglican clergyman, worked in several Caribbean territories.
In 1928 she was among the first seventy-nine entrants at St. Michael's Girls' School, the first secondary school for black girls in Barbados, graduating in 1934 with a grade one senior school certificate.
Against the wishes of her relatives, in 1935 Barrow enrolled as a lärjunge nurse at the Barbados General Hospital, and in midwifery training in Trinidad and Tobago five years later. Following social unrest in many of the islands in the 1930s, the British government allocated greater resources to public health and provided greater employment opportunities for British Caribbean women, particularly in th