Lady Jacqueline Fawkes

Read Her Funeral Program

Wife of Sir Randol Fawkes, Former President of The Bahamas Young Women’s Christian Association, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother.

“Jackie's finest hours will always be those times in her husband's turbulent career, when he literally walked in the valley of the shadow of imprisonment and was treated as a social and professional pariah. Women of lesser courage and faith would have reacted differently, but she surmounted every crisis without resorting to the excuses those hardships could easily have provided.”

— Sir Randol Fawkes

Former President of The Young Women’s Christian Association of The Bahamas

“She was a builder, a landscape artist extraordinaire, and gave without counting the cost! Affordable housing was her calling.”
— Rosalie Fawkes

When Lady Jacqueline Fawkes, former President of The Bahamas Young Women’s Christian Association commenced her term in office, it became apparent to her that along with the creation of community programs, a financial infrastructure was needed to ensure the continuity and sustaining of The Bahamas YWCA Movement and the physical property.

As she pondered the direction in which she should go, she made a decision to flow with her passion: building and construction. She often recalled an experience she had had in London when she found out that she no longer could afford to live in a hotel. As she looked around to find more affordable accommodations, she was directed to the local YWCA. It was then that she came to the realization that inexpensive shelter was an essential need and in 1994, she and the membership embarked upon the Affordable Housing Project which is still expanding today as we strive to meet the great demand for a good and safe place to live.

Today, thirty-one years after the first shovel of soil was turned over at the groundbreaking ceremony held on the YWCA’s premises in 1994, the demand for affordable housing has grown exponentially and the association is thankful to God that it has been able to build on the foundation bequeathed by former presidents and supporters.