“When I am writing, I forget the world around me”
The Renaissance addressed the rebirth of learning and of inquiry discarding the mores of the Middle Ages. An individual gifted at creating works of art, writing, painting, architecture, sculpture of the highest quality and standards would have been termed as being of the Renaissance. In defining a Renaissance man or woman they should be well educated, sophisticated and with talent and knowledge in a variety of disciplines. If anyone has the right to be called a “Renaissance Woman”, it is Angela Burke-Ramsay. This concept and notion applies initially to her writing, but to other spheres of her work as well.
Burke-Ramsay is an author, educator, lecturer and course facilitator, researcher, human resource management consultant, environmental health and safety specialist, executive coach and is now a leading figure in the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs of Jamaica. Of her career she says:
“I had planned to be a fiction writer from the time I started to read. What has happened however, is that I have been asked to do many different things, and I was educated to do all of them well.
Admitting that she enjoys the variety of her professional pursuits rather than one career focus, Angela Burke-Ramsay feels that a “multiple-themed career” allows the development of varied perspectives on life itself.
A Passion for Literature
Surrounded by books as a child, Burke-Ramsay’s two grandfathers were writers and both parents wrote and edited for newsletters. As the youngest child of the late K.C. Burke, attorney-at-law, and granddaughter of the late Rudolph Burke, a former government minister, she is also related to independent Jamaica’s first Minister of Trade and Industry, the Honorable Robert Lightbourne. Now a prolific writer herself of books, research reports and biographies, she admits to having difficulty understanding her own creative process. Unhappy with her drafts, she finds that when trying to concentrate on a particular topic, competing ideas come from nowhere. Yet she admits, demonstrating the passion for her work: “When I am writing, I forget the world around me” .
The world around her does imbue and inform her literary efforts, however. She is an experienced traveler to countries in the Far East, Asia, Australia, the Seychelles and even Antarctica. She has often taken journeys that others would find too challenging, such as when she went on an expedition into the Amazon Jungle. She braved the weather of Antarctica so that she could claim to have visited the southernmost region of the world. And despite all this travel, she admits that it is in India, where she spent months on a training fellowship, that the greatest cultural adjustment was required of her. India is the country that she loves and hopes to visit again one day:
“I cherish all of the places I visited. All countries visited teach you something different and valuable.”
Leading the Farquharson Institute:
Today, Angela Burke-Ramsay is President of the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs (FIPA), a non-partisan organization which serves as a catalyst for positive change in the Caribbean region. She is leader of a diverse and varied board of directors who are committed to driving for excellence in education, culture, science, technology, industry and commerce in the English-speaking Caribbean: “We have a distinct vision for science and technology because of its far-reaching consequences for the future.”
With her love of writing, through FIPA she is dedicated to publishing work on the Building Strong Families Project, consisting of five books which she is co-authoring with Southern Connecticut State University and the Yale Child Center and Yale School of Medicine. Their content includes but is not limited to safe homes for children, family nutrition, stress management and resilience for the family, and safety and security for the family. The illustrated e-books, based on best practices, are written in a simple and engaging style but are well referenced – over 600 scholarly references have been used so far. The e-books have been written for a global audience, and are being distributed and made available without charge around the world. Of these publications she notes:
“Building Strong Families is intended to inspire meaningful family life education policies in the Caribbean and elsewhere”.
Burke-Ramsay is keen that the Building Strong Families series is read and enjoyed by a wide audience as in her opinion everything emanates from the family and the very best and worst of humanity is rooted within the family system. She would like to see the series used in homes, religious organizations, churches, workplaces and community organizations: “This has implications for all of us as we progress into a complex future.”
Reflecting on her many publications, she recalls The Dilemma of Science, co-authored with Professor Arnoldo Ventura, a past Chairman of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology which despite being among the least read of her works nevertheless provides her with much satisfaction. Remarking on her style of writing she notes that she now writes in a clearer and more engaging style.
Looking To The Future:
At this stage of the journey of a unique and exceptional career which has taken many tributaries and trajectories, Angela Burke-Ramsay has turned to philosophy and specifically what she has termed the “Fit Thinking Philosophy”. Three areas fall under “Fit Thinking”; Practical Leadership, Building Strong Families and a project termed ‘Immortality’. She conceptualized this philosophy for FIPA and considers it practical rather than esoteric:
“No one is a completely fit thinker 100 percent of the time, and it is because of my own episodes of unfit thinking at certain points in my life why I developed this philosophy.”
As a proud Jamaican and Caribbean national, Burke-Ramsay has a deep and abiding love for her country and region which in her view has a unique culture based on the history of the region. However, this multi-talented and skilled individual admits:
“ I could enjoy being the citizen of any country, as long as I am not living in a dictatorship and women have legal rights.”
