Hazel Brown LLD, gen­der and con­sumer ac­tivist and for­mer co­or­di­na­tor of the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, passed away peace­ful­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing.  She was 80 years old.

The hu­man rights ad­vo­cate is sur­vived by four chil­dren, two sis­ters and sev­en grand­chil­dren in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Unit­ed States and Unit­ed King­dom.

De­tails con­cern­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments for Dr Brown will be re­leased soon.

Hazel Brown was award­ed an hon­orary Doc­tor­al De­gree (LLD) by The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine, in 2017.

In No­vem­ber 2019, she was in­duct­ed in­to the St. Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain’s Past Pupils’ Hall of Ex­cel­lence.

The fol­low­ing mi­ni-bi­og­ra­phy of her achieve­ments was read at the spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny at which she and four oth­er of the school’s alum­ni, were in­duct­ed in­to the Hall of Fame that year.

“This out­stand­ing past stu­dent of St. Joseph’s Con­vent, Port of Spain, promi­nent and pas­sion­ate ad­vo­cate of hu­man rights, Hazel Brown has giv­en un­stint­ing­ly for decades to the up­lift­ment of her fel­low Caribbean cit­i­zens.

From as far back as 1969, she has been pro­fes­sion­al­ly in­volved in re­search, so­cial de­vel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion projects. Her spe­cif­ic fo­cus has been in the area of pover­ty erad­i­ca­tion, con­sumer af­fairs and the pro­mo­tion of gen­der eq­ui­ty. She has or­gan­ised and con­duct­ed nu­mer­ous sem­i­nars and work­shops pur­suant to these ends through the or­gan­i­sa­tions she has been a part of as well as in col­lab­o­ra­tion with gov­ern­ment min­istries, CARI­COM, Com­mon­wealth or­gan­i­sa­tions, OAS, IDB, PA­HO, UNIFEM, UN­ESCO and oth­er UN agen­cies.

Wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the most dy­nam­ic women of the Caribbean, she has worked with a vast num­ber of women’s or­gan­i­sa­tions and lead­ers for the up­lift­ment of women through­out the re­gion. She is a found­ing mem­ber of the Net­work of NGOs of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion formed to present the po­si­tion of women in Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Third World Con­fer­ence on Women held in Nairo­bi in 1985. She is the past Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Com­mon­wealth Women’s Net­work and has been en­gaged in Com­mon­wealth ac­tiv­i­ties since the first Com­mon­wealth Peo­ple’s Fo­rum at the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in Harare in 1991. She has been a con­sis­tent ad­vo­cate for a strong voice and space for civ­il so­ci­ety in Com­mon­wealth ac­tiv­i­ties and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

She was a na­tion­al Spe­cial En­voy for women and girls with the Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, a Board mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Agribusi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion and the Diego Mar­tin Con­sumer Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety.

With an ex­em­plary record of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, she is the re­cip­i­ent of nu­mer­ous na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al awards and com­men­da­tions. No­tably, she was the first re­cip­i­ent of the Na­tion­al Award for De­vel­op­ment of Women in 2014. In fact, in March 2015, the In­sti­tute of Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies joined the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, the Of­fice of the Unit­ed Na­tions Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor, the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Work­ing Women for So­cial Progress to host a con­fer­ence in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Hazel Brown’s com­mit­ment and con­tri­bu­tion ti­tled “Fear­less Pol­i­tics: The Life and Times of Hazel Brown”.

Lec­tur­er, Dr. Gabrielle Ho­sein, one of the con­fer­ence or­gan­is­ers, said, “There are few Caribbean cit­i­zens like Hazel Brown. Her sto­ry should re­mind an­oth­er gen­er­a­tion that we don’t have to in­vent new strate­gies or search for more con­tem­po­rary is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to women’s rights. What we have to do is learn from and con­tin­ue her lega­cy.”

In 2017, she was award­ed an hon­orary Doc­tor­al De­gree by The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine.

A proud grad­u­ate of St. Joseph’s Con­vent, Port of Spain, two of her daugh­ters—Dr. Leah Brown and Madam Jus­tice Car­la Brown-An­toine—are al­so grad­u­ates of St. Joseph’s Con­vent.

As a thir­ty-year can­cer sur­vivor, with four grown chil­dren and eight grand­chil­dren, she re­mains a shin­ing ex­am­ple of de­ter­mi­na­tion, faith, courage and above all ser­vice to oth­ers."