Families, friends bid Noellie Alexander farewell |09 May 2018
Family members and friends paid their last respect to former minister Noellie Alexander during her funeral service held at the Ste Thérèse Church, at Plaisance, yesterday afternoon.
Mrs Alexander passed away in the morning of May 3 at the Seychelles Hospital after a short illness. She was 71 years old.
Among the mourners were President Danny Faure, high government officials and other high personalities in the country. The funeral service was led by Father Landry Maketa, helped by Deacon Louis Agathine and Father John Kelechi. Father Maketa reminded the congregation that as they accompany Minister Alexander to the Kingdom of God, they should do so in prayers and also to always stay connected to God and to believe in resurrection.
Minister Alexander was born in Mombasa, Kenya, on September 10, 1945 from a Mauritian father and a Seychellois mother. She did all her schooling in Kenya and came to Seychelles in 1969 where she started her career with the police and later in finance as a stenographer.
In 1971, she joined British Airways as a sales representative when the British airline BOAC opened its offices in Victoria. She was among the first Seychellois to work with the airline.
After that, she joined the University of Manchester to read for a Master’s degree in public administration. She later joined the public service where she developed a special interest in human resource development and was appointed director of the Seychelles Institute of Management (SIM) in 1979.
In 1989 she became the director general for manpower development and in 1993 she was appointed principal secretary for health.
Miss Alexander served as Minister of Administration, and later as Minister of Administration and Manpower Development, between 1998 and 2005.
She served briefly as chief executive of the newly restructured Seychelles Institute of Management from 2005 until her appointment as ambassador in 2006. She retired from full-time public service in November 2009 after serving as Seychelles high commissioner to South Africa.
In 2015, Miss Alexander founded the Lalyans Seselwa political party along with fellow former minister Patrick Pillay, who was voted the Speaker of the sixth National Assembly before resigning from the post in January this year.
In a testimony, her friend of over 40 years, Michol Perreau, described Minister Alexander as “very humble and simple and sometimes, a little bit naïve in certain instances despite her numerous high level attributes”.
“Come Christmas time, she would have a gift for everyone. The pile under her tree nearly reached the top of that tree. If nobody gave you a present, you could guarantee one would come from her,” she said. Mrs Perreau added that Minister Alexander had a passion for cooking and was still cooking for everyone despite not being too well. She also liked to sing and write as Mrs Perreau noted that perhaps someone could one day finish her biography she had started writing.
Mrs Perreau continued saying that down the lane, life has served her many injustice and disappointments and “she would feel it her responsibility to highlight any flaws, be it from the head of state to her gardener,” she added.
Apart from family and friends, she leaves behind, a son - Jean-Philippe Alexander – two daughters - Thea and Kelly - and her three brothers Peter, Calixte and Clement Alexander. She was buried at the Mont Fleuri cemetery.