“At an early age, I believed that everyone should always be treated fairly.”
Introduction
The story of Dr. (H. C.) Chandrawattie Persaud is a story of movement, but not movement without direction. It is the journey of a woman who began in a quiet region of Guyana and gradually shaped a life that crossed the worlds of education, healthcare, labour representation, law, public health, institutional development, and social justice. Her path has not been simple or single layered. It has been built through decisions made in real circumstances, through personal responsibility, through fear faced honestly, through sacrifices accepted by her family, and through an enduring desire to help people understand the systems that affect their lives.
She grew up in Essequibo Coast, Region #2 one of the ten administrative regions of Guyana. Her family was a nuclear one, with her parents and four siblings. As the second child, she carried an early seriousness toward education and responsibility. She was not guided into a fixed career from childhood, yet she was curious, observant, and drawn to reading. Much of what she wanted to know, she tried to find out for herself. This habit of inquiry would later become one of the defining features of her life.
Her first professional calling was nursing. She admired the uniform of a nurse and the dignity of the work, and in 1992 she entered the registered nurse programme in Georgetown. Nursing brought her into direct contact with human pain, care, discipline, and the demands of a healthcare system that worked day and night. It also exposed her to fear, especially as a woman moving through public spaces for working night duty at the Georgetown Public Hospital, and to the risks faced by healthcare workers. Those experiences did not weaken her desire to serve. Instead, they widened her understanding of what service required.
While she worked as a Registered Nurse with the Ministry of Health of Guyana, she also worked as a Shop Steward representing all categories of health care workers at the Georgetown Hospital. The trade union environment showed her that many people understood unfairness but were too afraid to speak for themselves, for fear of victimisation. She became a voice for healthcare workers and later for public sector workers serving as the General Secretary of the largest public sector union in Guyana, the Guyana Public Service Union. Through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and advocacy for the vulnerable, she began to stand for fairness, justice, equality, and respect at work. Yet even in that role, she saw the need for deeper legal knowledge. Employment issues, constitutional rights, public sector negotiations, and conditions of service demanded more than goodwill. They demanded authority. That realization carried her into law.
Her legal education at the University of Guyana and later at Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago became a major turning point. Being away from home for two years, with a young child and a supportive husband in Guyana, required focus and sacrifice. After graduating from Hugh Wooding Law School Dr Persaud returned to Guyana and was admitted to the Bar in November 2008. Since then, she has continued as a legal advocate, working across areas such as criminal law, civil law including family law, land law, employment law, labour law, occupational safety and health, industrial relations, and medical negligence.
Her journey did not stop at law. In 2016, she completed a Master of Public Health at the University of Guyana, where her thesis received a perfect score. Her research focused on the prosecution of perpetrators of domestic violence against women at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court. The paper was later presented at the Theater Guild located in Kingston, Georgetown, Guyana, compliments of Philanthropy, Alumni, Civic Engagement, University of Guyana, and then at the Sexual Violence Research Institute (SVRI) Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, opening another space for her voice in discussions on violence, justice, women, and public health.
“here is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Phase 1: A Daughter of Region Two
Dr Chandrawattie Persaud was born into the landscape, rhythm, and identity of Essequibo Coast, Region Two, one of the 10 Administrative Regions of Guyana remembered not only as a place on the map, but as the first world that shaped her understanding of family, education, responsibility, and community. Guyana has ten administrative regions, and for her, Region Two was home. She is fondly called “Chandra” or “Chan” by her relatives, school mates and villagers. Region two was where she grew up, where her early schooling began, and where the foundations of her personal discipline quietly took root.
Her childhood was spent in a nuclear family with her mother, father, and four siblings. Her father was Sarju Persaud, and her mother was Nandanie. She was the second of the five siblings, a position that placed her close enough to elder responsibility and young enough to still feel the tenderness of childhood. Her eldest sister, Radica Rattan, who later passed away, had been a School Headteacher. Her brothers, Ganesh Persaud and Lakshman Persaud, and her sister Indira Thakurdin, formed part of the close family circle through which she learned the importance of care, guidance, and mutual respect.
Life did not remain untouched by loss. Her father died when she was still very young, around the time she was moving from primary education into secondary education. That experience came early, before life had fully explained itself. It placed responsibility near her before many children are ready to understand it. Yet she did not allow grief to turn into helplessness. She moved forward with attention to education and with a growing awareness that families survive not only by affection, but by effort.
Her mother remained an important part of the family’s life until her passing around 1998. By then, Dr. Persaud was already an adult, but the responsibility she carried as an elder sibling did not fade. One of her siblings had just completed secondary school and needed to continue forward. She took it upon herself to help ensure that they were given a path to education. That sense of responsibility did not stop with siblings. It later extended to nieces, nephews, and others who needed guidance.
Even in her early years, she understood that education was not simply a certificate or a ceremony. It was a way of giving a person options. It was the difference between confusion and direction. It was the beginning of self respect. This belief would become one of the most consistent threads of her life.
The Essequibo Coast did more than locate her childhood. It gave her a sense of identity. Years later, when she was granted the opportunity by the Guyana Public Service Union to be a member of the delegation of the Public Services International to attend the United Nations World Social Summit in Geneva during the period March 6-12, 1995, the local media referred to her as the “Cinderella County Girl,” linking her story to Region Two, known as the Cinderella County. At this summit, Dr. Persaud was able to pay greater attention to the issues of global labour standards, poverty eradication, and social development of vulnerable groups of society, in particular, public servants. That description as “Cinderella County Girl” stayed with her because it carried the memory of a girl from a region sometimes described in humble terms, making her way into spaces of national and international significance.
Her early life therefore cannot be understood only as a beginning. It was the first evidence of who she would become. She would become a woman who valued education because she knew what it could do. She would become a professional who cared about systems because she understood how difficult life could become when people were left unsupported. She would become a guide to others because, from a young age, she learned that families and communities depend on those willing to step forward.
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Phase 2 : The Discipline of Learning
Education entered Dr. Persaud’s life not as a passing requirement, but as a discipline that she would carry for decades. She attended Aurora Primary School in Aurora, Essequibo Coast, and later Anna Regina Multilateral School (ARMS) in Anna Regina, Essequibo Coast, Region Two. These were not merely institutions she passed through. They were places that gave structure to her curiosity and allowed her to begin seeing how knowledge could open a path beyond uncertainty.
At Anna Regina Multilateral School, she completed her secondary studies and earned her diploma in 1985. Her academic exposure included English A, English B, Mathematics, Spanish, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This range of subjects reflected the breadth that would later become visible in her professional life. She would not remain bound to one discipline. Instead, she would move across health, law, public policy, education, and research with the same seriousness she first brought to learning.
As the second child in her family, she placed strong emphasis on education. She was not tutored into a definite career path, nor was her future handed to her with certainty. She learned to search for answers by reading. She became curious and developed the habit of researching things for herself. This mattered deeply. It meant that even before formal higher education shaped her, she had already learned how to ask questions, how to look for explanations, and how to find her own direction.
After school, she left Region Two and spent some time away. She lived in Trinidad for about two years before returning home. These early movements introduced her to the idea that growth sometimes requires leaving familiar spaces, but also that returning home can be part of the journey. She had not yet entered the major professional chapters of her life, but the pattern was already forming. She would step out, learn, return, serve, and then step out again when the next stage called.
Before nursing became her main professional direction, she also worked as a pupil teacher. Her working history records her as a pupil teacher at Aurora Primary School in 1986 and Good Hope Primary School in 1987. Those early roles matter because they show her connection to education even before she became known for law, public health, and advocacy. Teaching, even in an early capacity, placed her in a role where knowledge had to be shared, not kept. That same instinct would later appear in union education, legal advice, social worker training, prosecutor training, and institutional evaluation.
Although she did not begin life with a fixed map, she always carried a desire to move forward. She liked to read. She was curious. She wanted to understand. This curiosity did not make her restless in a careless way. It made her attentive. When one field showed her another need, she followed that need. When one qualification showed her a gap, she studied further. When one responsibility revealed another responsibility, she accepted the challenge.
Her early education therefore became more than preparation for employment. It became preparation for a life of continuous improvement. She would later earn qualifications in nursing, occupational safety and health, law, mediation, public health, quality assurance, academic counselling, and advanced research. Yet the heart of that lifelong learning was already visible in the young girl from Region Two who believed that reading and self-effort could carry her forward.
“The simple act of caring is heroic.”
Phase 3 : The White Uniform and the Call to Care
For a long time, Dr. Persaud wanted to be a nurse. The desire began with something simple and visual. She admired the nursing uniform. She liked the way nurses looked at work, the dignity carried in that appearance, and the sense of service it represented. As she grew older, that first attraction deepened into a real professional path.
In late 1989, she joined the registered nurse programme, a programme that lasted three years. After completing her training, she became a registered nurse. Her early nursing career placed her at Georgetown Public Hospital, the main public hospital in Guyana, where she worked actively for about ten years from 1992. She also worked part time at private hospitals, including Prashad’s Hospital, where her working history records her service as a registered nurse in 1995.
Nursing taught her discipline in its most immediate form. It was not work that could be postponed or treated lightly. The healthcare system operated twenty four hours a day. Patients needed attention in the morning, evening, night, and early hours. A nurse had to understand duty not as a convenient schedule, but as a responsibility that belonged to human life itself, that of protecting and saving lives.
During this period, she continued to build her knowledge. She pursued a Diploma in Occupational Safety and Health at the University of Guyana, earning distinction in 1997. She also completed a Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health through the Trade Union Research Center, Jamaica in 1996. These studies were not separate from her experience as a nurse. They strengthened her ability to understand the working environment, risk, protection, and the responsibilities of institutions toward workers.
Her healthcare knowledge continued to grow even after her initial nursing years. In 2009, she completed an Instructor Course in Triaging for the hospital emergency room. This added another layer to her understanding of urgent care, patient priority, and the discipline required in emergency settings. It also reflected how deeply her early healthcare foundation continued to remain part of her wider professional identity.
The hospital also introduced her to the layered reality of public service. Healthcare workers cared for others, yet they themselves needed protection, fair treatment, representation, and safe working conditions. Doctors, nurses, and other categories of hospital staff formed part of a system that depended on their labour, but their concerns also needed to be heard.
In time, the hospital where she worked became connected to another major turning point in her life. The union received permission from the Ministry of Health for her to work more directly in representation. This allowed her to support healthcare workers at the hospital, which was then known as Georgetown Public Hospital and later became Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. What began as care at the bedside slowly expanded into care for the worker, the professional, and the public servant. Her dedication to seeing workers receiving fair treatment earned her a place as a Director on the Board of Directors at the Hospital. In this way, her voice echoed the needs of the health care workers at a higher level of the hospital system.
Note of Thanks
Dr. Persaud extends heartfelt gratitude to the people whose presence, patience, advice, and support have helped her continue through demanding years of study, work, service, and responsibility.
She gives thanks to her siblings, who have always looked up to her for advice and guidance. Their respect, kindness, and love have meant deeply to her. Through loss, responsibility, and the need to move forward, they remained part of the family bond that strengthened her sense of duty.
She is especially grateful to her immediate family, her husband and children, who understood the sacrifices she made in pursuit of education and professional service. They stood close to the emotional cost of her journey, yet they did not make her feel that her ambitions placed them at a disadvantage. Instead, they supported her path and allowed her to keep moving toward the work she believed she was meant to do.
She also offers sincere thanks to Dr. Paloma Mohamed- Martin, the current Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, who has been supportive, encouraging, and generous with advice. Her recognition of Dr. Persaud’s efforts and her encouragement to move forward became part of the support system that helped her continue growing academically and professionally. She is forever grateful to Professor Aubrey Bishop, then Head of the Law Department of the University of Guyana for his support and guidance. She recalled his firm advice to complete law school.
Beyond these immediate names, Dr. Persaud remains grateful to the new friends in the legal fraternity, especially her colleagues in IBIS Chambers, and the support staff, friends and distant family members who offered words of advice, admiration, direct support, and indirect encouragement throughout the years. Each act of kindness, whether large or small, became part of the strength behind her journey.
Her thanks are therefore not only for achievements reached, but for the people who helped make endurance possible.
thanks,
– Dr. (H.C.) Chandrawattie Persaud