Thanks to the relentless efforts and partnership of the CAAAI Education Committee Members and Marcia Smith (Ms. Marcia) Founder and Principal of the Gifted Hands Learning Center For Special Needs (GHLCFSN), a joint crusade was launched in June this year to find a suitable and safe place for the teachers and students of the school.

Following a request to move from its Campbellville location, Ms. Marcia contacted the CAAAI Education Committee to solicit support in acquiring a new and better location for the school. The months and weeks that followed were not easy. CAAAI Education Committee members made numerous phone calls and wrote several letters that introduced and recommended Ms. Marcia and Gifted Hands to homeowners, potential renters, and private organizations, amidst many promises and disappointments.

WHAT GUYANA'S SONS and DAUGHTERS CAN BE

Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International (CAAAI) congratulates Dr. Frank Lennox Douglas on his most recent prestigious achievement, - PERMANENCY IN THE HISTORY MAKERS COLLECTION OF THE UNITED STATES LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

The accompanying statement affixed to the names of the 13th Librarian of Congress, the Acting Librarian of Congress, and the Founder and President of the History Makers, extrapolates as follows - "The History Makers archive provides invaluable first-person accounts of both well-known and unsung African-Americans, detailing their hopes, dreams and accomplishments, often in the face of adversity.  This culturally important collection is a rich and perse resource for scholars, teachers, students and documentarians seeking a more complete record of our nation's history and its people."

Dr. Desiree DeFlorimonte, Chief Executive Officer of the Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International has been honored this month by the State of Maryland, and the Trinidad and Tobago Working Women's Committee where she served on the Caribbean Students Scholarship Fund as a Member of its Board for fifteen years.

The TTWWC 2025 Community Service Award was earned in recognition of Dr. DeFlorimonte's outstanding leadership and exemplary commitment to the Caribbean Community as a whole, and her unwavering support of the Trinidad and Tobago Working Women's Committee.

Simultaneously, Dr. DeFlorimonte also received the State of Maryland Governor's Citation in appreciation of her outstanding services to the Citizens of the state. The Citation reads - "Be it known [that] because of your demonstration of high integrity and ability, meriting our great trust and respect, we are most pleased to award you the Governor's Citation in appreciation of your outstanding services to the Citizens of this State."

The United States (U.S) Embassy in Georgetown has released a statement in recognition of the contribution of Guyanese, Dr. Frank Douglas, on the occasion of Black History Month.

The statement says that “Black History Month spotlight shines on Dr. Frank Douglas, a Guyanese-American medical doctor and researcher.

Dr. Douglas was born and raised in Guyana where he excelled in his schooling, scoring highest in the country in national testing. He earned a Fulbright scholarship to Lehigh University and finished his undergraduate degree in less than three years.

The following communique was recently released by the U.S. Embassy in the Republic of Guyana: 

“In honor of Black History Month, we continue to introduce you to African Americans in the diaspora who are making an impact at home and abroad. 

Meet Dr. Desiree DeFlorimonte fondly known as Dr. De! A reflective practitioner and transformational leader, Dr. De has a long and distinguished career in education spanning more than four decades with a focus on Literacy Studies, Early Childhood Development, Curriculum and Instruction and Humanitarianism. In 2016, Dr. De received the prestigious U.S. Fulbright Scholar Award and taught courses in Literacy Studies, Reading in Content Areas and Children’s Literature, at the University of Guyana (UG) and is presently teaching an online course for UG. 

Few books constitute a successful marriage between intellectual stimuli and contemporary history, and when they do, they oftentimes lose their audiences somewhere between the author’s opinion and the objective of the book itself. This is not the case in the 80-plus pages of ‘Walking in History: Sankofa - Our Trip to Ghana and Benin’. This manuscript, written by our three friends Carmen Bovell, Ph.D, Florence Jones Calhoun, M.Ed, and Desiree DeFlorimonte, Ph.D takes the readership on an 18-day journey to contemporary African landscapes, filling each step with ancestral pride, African monarchies, the slave-trade from a somewhat different perspective, and the cascade of emotions that swung like a pendulum from their tour of the Cape Coast Castle, the beginning of the African Holocaust, to the spell-binding beauty of quaint little villages and the busy traffic of Accra.

Few things in this world take complete dedication, perseverance, and faith like making a conscious decision to write a book and share one’s knowledge and experience with a targeted group of people. This is true about CAAAI alum, Ms. Kim M. Barry who devoted her time and penmanship to writing a book entitled 'How We Got Over: Ten real life lessons for real life challenges’.

Ms. Barry, moved by the very essence of her 30-year career as a licensed Social Worker drew upon her first-hand knowledge and experience, in order to reach out and assist women (and men) by providing a practical pathway for dealing with stressors and negative encounters in our daily lives.

Fellow Guyanese:

Our Embassy is pleased to extend this invitation for Friday, April 26, 2019 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. to an Evening of Inspiration, Discussion and Book Signing by Guyanese-born, Dr. Frank L.. Douglas. Dr. Douglas has held top management positions in global pharmaceutical companies and is a recipient of the prestigious Black History Maker Award in 2007.

We hope you would be able to join us and the Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International, the sponsor of this evening’s Reception in celebrating Dr. Douglas’ Memoirs "Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream".

At the 2010 Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International (CAAAI) reunion celebration in Brooklyn NY, Dr. Frank Douglas was a recipient of the prestigious Robert A. Pinkerton’s award for Humanitarian Services. We all listened attentively to his acceptance speech as he told his story of how he mastered the German language. I was intrigued not by ‘how’, but more so by the tenacity of ‘why’. Dr. Douglas explained further that the feeling of imperiousness and arrogance that oftentimes accompany so called superior languages, required the dismissal of the barrier that supported that form of disparity - he decided to learn and master the entire German language, and he did.

Just eleven days ago, on Saturday July 16, 2016 the Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International celebrated its fifth biennial reunion at Antun’s in Queens, New York. According to popular comments, many have opined that this occasion was the very best CAAAI reunion ever, and that it epitomized the true spirit of the Cambridge alumni. We are grateful for this positive feedback, but must add that the caliber of our Pinkerton Award recipients this year was the litmus test or most reliable indicator of the association’s recognition of ‘true excellence’.

Cambridge Academy Alumni Association International is proud to celebrate the success and achievement of one of its member-supporters Ms. Salome Osborne, whose dedication to a strong educational foundation and learning opportunities for children in Guyana, reached another rewarding high-point at a recent graduation ceremony on the West Bank of Demerara. Ms. Osborne has redefined the term 'giving back' in every practical way through her life-long commitment to the youth in her Guyanese hometown and community.

Dear Fellow CAAAI Alumni,

I take this opportunity to congratulate all Alumni members for the development and launch of our CAAAI Website. Feedback so far, has encouraged us to keep going forward and make more progress for the association. With this in mind, I would like to refocus on our membership drive now that our website has the ‘PayPal’ feature that makes membership applications and paying membership dues easier for you.