Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Wan­da Bernard dis­tinct­ly re­mem­bers walk­ing back on­to the Bish­op Anstey High School (BAHS) com­pound in April 2008 with noth­ing but mere cu­rios­i­ty and a deep de­sire to serve. A grad­u­ate of the school in the late 1980s, she had re­turned sim­ply to at­tend an an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing of the Old Hi­lar­i­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion, ea­ger to learn what had be­come of the in­sti­tu­tion that shaped her ear­ly life.

“I went to the meet­ing just as an at­tendee with ab­solute­ly no in­ten­tion or as­pi­ra­tion of be­ing elect­ed as pres­i­dent,” she re­calls. “I just want­ed to know what had been go­ing on with my school since I left.”

By the end of that meet­ing, Bernard’s qui­et in­ten­tion to ob­serve had turned in­to an un­ex­pect­ed call to lead­er­ship. Nom­i­nat­ed and sub­se­quent­ly elect­ed, she be­came pres­i­dent of the BAHS Old Hi­lar­i­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion in 2008, a po­si­tion she has held con­tin­u­ous­ly for three con­sec­u­tive terms, which then re­sult­ed in her present role as a mem­ber of the school’s Board of Man­age­ment. Ac­cord­ing to Bernard, what ini­tial­ly felt like an ac­ci­dent turned out to be no ac­ci­dent at all and, in fact, a ful­fil­ment of her life­long call­ing to ser­vice.

Her de­ci­sion to serve BAHS was root­ed in a deep sense of grat­i­tude and an in­de­scrib­able pull to the school that shaped her for­ma­tive years. Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been an ac­tive mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive of the UWI St Au­gus­tine Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion, Bernard felt it was time to take her ser­vice a step fur­ther. “Yes, I at­tend­ed UWI, and it felt re­al­ly great to give back,” she ex­plains, “but BAHS mould­ed and shaped me in­to the woman I am to­day. I want­ed to fo­cus on giv­ing back to the school that gave me so much.”

That sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to­wards the school and its stake­hold­ers would come to de­fine her pres­i­den­cy.

When Bernard as­sumed lead­er­ship, the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pri­or­i­ties were clear and ur­gent. BAHS, found­ed in 1921, sits on an age­ing cam­pus, much of it built with long-stand­ing struc­tures that ex­ist­ed for decades. “As a gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed school, the school re­mains very grate­ful for the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion sub­ven­tion,” Bernard notes. “But the re­al­i­ty is that pro­vid­ing an ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence of a cer­tain stan­dard re­quires mon­ey. Build­ings must be func­tion­al, safe and fit for pur­pose.”

There­fore, while the school fo­cus­es the sub­sidy from the min­istry on the day-to-day ex­pens­es of run­ning the school, the alum­ni as­so­ci­a­tion fo­cus­es on fund­ing cap­i­tal projects, in­clud­ing re­pairs, re­build­ing and restora­tion of build­ings that can­not be cov­ered by rou­tine fund­ing.

One of the most sig­nif­i­cant un­der­tak­ings dur­ing her tenure and be­yond has been the restora­tion of the school’s Ju­bilee Hall, orig­i­nal­ly com­mis­sioned in the 1970s. “As an alum­ni as­so­ci­a­tion, our role is cap­i­tal works,” Bernard says. “Re­build­ing and restor­ing run in­to mil­lions of dol­lars.”

Fundrais­ing be­came the fo­cus of the as­so­ci­a­tion, and Bernard and the wider team the lifeblood of those ef­forts. Luck­i­ly, the com­mit­tee was able to stand on a strong foun­da­tion, as BAHS had a long his­to­ry of in­no­va­tion with re­gard to fund­ing. In 1994, the school pi­o­neered the all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val fete mod­el, which has now been adopt­ed by many oth­er schools. But the ini­tial years were a chal­lenge for the com­mit­tee, Bernard says. The first all-in­clu­sive had such poor at­ten­dance that some cater­ers told them, ‘Don’t both­er pay­ing us,’ she laughs. “But his­to­ry would at­test that BAHS went on to be­come a must-go event in its prime.”

Over time, how­ev­er, eco­nom­ic in­fla­tion and ris­ing costs made the all-in­clu­sive mod­el less sus­tain­able. In 2022, the as­so­ci­a­tion made what Bernard calls “a leap of faith”, tran­si­tion­ing to a cool­er fete for­mat. “It’s less cost­ly but still heavy on vibes,” she ex­plains. “We asked our­selves one sim­ple ques­tion: what do feters want?”

With a 12-mem­ber com­mit­tee span­ning alum­ni in their 30s and be­yond, self-de­scribed as “feters and limers”, their in­no­va­tion paid off mas­sive­ly as the new mod­el res­onat­ed with fete-go­ers. “Af­ford­abil­i­ty mat­ters,” Bernard adds. “Bring your drinks from Christ­mas, en­joy in­clu­sive food, top-notch en­ter­tain­ment and free park­ing.”

Fundrais­ing is a high­ly struc­tured process for the as­so­ci­a­tion, and there is a board-ap­point­ed strate­gic fundrais­ing com­mit­tee whose man­date is to have over­sight of fundrais­ing events put on for the school. Apart from the cool­er fete, the choir and the teach­ers and par­ents host fundrais­ing events, so the com­mit­tee en­sures co­or­di­na­tion is seam­less and ac­count­ing for funds is prop­er­ly done.

The cool­er fete com­mit­tee is sep­a­rate, and Bernard chairs the or­gan­i­sa­tion of that event. In Oc­to­ber 2024, the cool­er fete com­mit­tee added an­oth­er event to their cal­en­dar, host­ing for the first time a sold-out high tea and fash­ion show event which she de­scribed as a re­sound­ing suc­cess.

The ap­proach and ded­i­ca­tion to un­re­lent­ing hard work and suc­cess are deeply aligned with the val­ues Bernard and oth­er com­mit­tee mem­bers ab­sorbed as stu­dents. Some of the core foun­da­tion­al val­ues were trans­mit­ted to stu­dents of the school and re­mained with them for­ev­er. From Form One, BAHS girls learn the school’s his­to­ry and mot­to: Non sine pul­vere, pal­man, trans­lat­ing to ‘not with­out the dust, the palm’. “In or­der to win the prize, you have to do the work,” she says, a con­cept that has guid­ed her well in­to her pro­fes­sion­al life and work as an alum­na–in­sist­ing that their pur­suit of ex­cel­lence through the ve­hi­cle of hard work de­fines their ap­proach.

Faith, Bernard said, is an­oth­er thread con­nect­ing her pro­fes­sion­al life and vol­un­teer work which was taught dur­ing her days at the school. Now Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer at a re­gion­al in­sur­ance com­pa­ny in Trinidad and To­ba­go, her ca­reer path was al­most as un­ex­pect­ed as her elec­tion at BAHS.

“I start­ed in HR at RBTT and quite ac­ci­den­tal­ly end­ed up in in­sur­ance,” she re­calls. “I went to an in­ter­view as a favour to a friend, and the next day they want­ed me.” Faced with the de­ci­sion to leave the bank, she leaned on lessons in faith learnt at BAHS. “I prayed over it. We were taught in school to ground all our ma­jor de­ci­sions in prayer.” Now, 15 years lat­er, her leap of faith has re­sult­ed in her ris­ing from the man­age­r­i­al lev­el to one of the com­pa­ny’s top ex­ec­u­tives.

Ser­vice is an­oth­er of the foun­da­tion­al val­ues learnt at BAHS that she has car­ried through­out her life. “As a leader, I’m at the ser­vice of my peo­ple,” Bernard says. “We can on­ly be suc­cess­ful through work as a team.” She de­scribed her­self as an ad­vo­cate for her team, fo­cused on ded­i­cat­ing re­sources to en­sure they are well equipped with the tools and re­sources they need to suc­ceed. “I stick around for the hard days and nights,” she adds, nev­er aban­don­ing her team.

“It’s less about me and more about serv­ing them, po­si­tion­ing oth­ers for suc­cess.” That same phi­los­o­phy in­forms her vol­un­teer lead­er­ship at BAHS.

Bal­anc­ing de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion­al and vol­un­teer roles has re­quired in­ten­tion­al self-care. “Ex­er­cise is crit­i­cal for me,” Bernard says. “When I don’t ex­er­cise, I feel the ef­fects of stress and anx­i­ety more.” She has al­so learnt the val­ue of still­ness. “I take half an hour in the day, no phone, no dis­trac­tions, to close my eyes, breathe deeply and re­lease. What­ev­er hap­pened to­day, I let it go. To­mor­row is an­oth­er day.” That com­mit­ment to self-care, she says, al­lows her to give ful­ly with­out burnout.

To­day, Bernard con­tin­ues to serve on the school’s board, with her eyes firm­ly on the fu­ture. Phase one of the Ju­bilee Hall’s restora­tion was com­plet­ed in 2023, fund­ed by Methanol Hold­ings, past stu­dents’ con­tri­bu­tions and fete pro­ceeds, with the 2023’s cool­er fete prof­it match­ing ex­act­ly what was owed to the con­trac­tor. Phase two, fo­cused on the hall’s in­te­ri­or, will be fund­ed through fetes from 2024 to 2026.

Bernard’s ded­i­ca­tion to her com­mu­ni­ty re­mains un­wa­ver­ing. “I want to help shape de­ci­sions that ben­e­fit every sin­gle stake­hold­er at Bish­op Anstey High School–in­clud­ing the stu­dents, teach­ers and par­ents,” Bernard says. Com­ment­ing on how the com­mit­tee in­tends to achieve their goals, she says that “it has to be through part­ner­ship–it takes a vil­lage to move the school for­ward.” For Bernard, ser­vice to BAHS is not a chap­ter that closed fol­low­ing her tenure as pres­i­dent, but a life­long com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing the girls who pass through the school’s walls re­ceive the high-qual­i­ty, holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion that the school has be­come well known for.