Elena was  born in the community  of Anse Ger Desruisseaux on the 4th November  1950 to  Mr and Mrs Gerald and Marie Eve  Baptiste. She is the 9th of 12 children. She attended the  Desruisseaux infant and  primary school.

She became  a teacher at the age of 15 years. It wasn't easy being a teacher  at that  age. That was in 1965. One had to sit an exam every year for 5 years and  had to succeed every exam to move to the next level. At the  end of the 5th  exam, if successful, you can attend  teacher's college.

Miss Elena Baptiste attended teacher's  college from  1974 to 1976. She was very thankful for being successful as she  became  a qualified teacher. She  taught up to  grade 5 but for  most of her teaching career  she taught  mostly  infants. She loved teaching. Because of health problems  she retired 2 years before my retirement age  in 2008.

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Miss Octavia is loved by her 4 Biological children Dr. Phedra Marius-Arkorful,  Andy Colin Marius, Gemma Marius and Shervroy  Heath Marius.

 

Her past students  praise her for not only bring a teacher but a mentor, mother and advisor

She won Home Economics prizes at national exhibitions?

She was awarded  by the Ministry of education for her contribution to education in St.lucia

In the community, she has been a tower of support to the sick and needy , always willing to help the less able and others in time of need.

Corinne Carlson Rasmussen was born on March 20, 1940 in Rockford Illinois. She grew up in a family very devoted to both charity and education. Her own father reluctantly left school in his 8th grade year to help with the family farm’s harvest during the Great Depression.

 

He made great efforts to educate himself over the next decades and became a successful business executive. There, he was most proud of his work with the shift workers at the factory who had not necessarily been able to complete high school either, yet who were also working hard to build better lives for their own families.

 

Corinne’s mother had studied law in college and was a music instructor who also valued education immensely, she took great joy in teaching her students to play classical piano. Her parents’ experiences greatly impacted Corinne’s own outlook on the importance of education. She graduated from college and did advanced studies, becoming a speech therapist. She worked in local grade schools while raising her own family, bursting with pride over the young children’s achievements.

 

For the rest of her life she would proudly describe the challenges some of them had overcome and how proud she was of their academic and personal successes. She believed, she knew, that education is every child’s human right.

 

Corinne and her husband met Aymar Sinaise and his wife in Madison, WI in 2010, becoming close friends, and soon learned about the poverty and challenges to educational access in his home country of St. Lucia. This reminded her of a fund she had previously been involved with.

 

In the winter of 2000 Corinne donated to a scholarship fund in Da Nang, Vietnam, having learned about a program through her granddaughter Ruby’s adoption agency. Every $30 donated in that fund paid for a full year scholarship and school supplies for a girl to attend middle school and build a better future. Some of the rural Vietnamese girls who received scholarships also received their first pair of shoes, an entrance requirement to attend classes. Corinne would have absolutely loved to support children’s education in St. Lucia for these same reasons and values.

 

She passed away in the spring of 2022, and a donation has proudly been made to Rico’s Foundation in her memory. Corinne’s family hopes to remain involved in future years to support St. Lucia youth in accessing and thriving through education, which Corinne knew is a basic, universal human right. She would have rejoiced at pictures of these students proudly thriving in their schools!