THE MARY Seacole Trust (MST) joined forces with Jamaica’s Mary Seacole Foundation (MSF) to celebrate the 19th century Jamaican/Scottish nurse as part of International Women’s Day and the World Health Organisation’s Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.

Mary Seacole Trust Chair Trevor Sterling and Vice Chair Lisa Rodrigues CBE were guests at the relaunch of Jamaica’s Mary Seacole Foundation on Sunday March 8, held at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston.

Stirling said: “We were able to tell people in Mary’s home country how well loved and respected Mary is in Britain, and to relate the story of how we achieved a statue to Mary, the first of a named black woman in the UK, in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital, London, where so many nurses from Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean have trained over the years.

“We are delighted to be in partnership with MSF to promote Mary’s legacy in her home country and in the country where she made her home after serving the British army so well in the Crimea.”

Welcome Home Mary Seacole, is the banner under which the Mary Seacole Foundation has launched its communication and education programme, to celebrate the spirit of the Jamaican woman who was voted the Greatest Black Briton in a 2004 poll in the United Kingdom.

Sabrena McDonald Radcliffe, a director of MSF said: “Welcome Home Mary Seacole is the MSF’s relaunch as a body committed to promoting the legacy of our beloved heroine and other women who have committed their lives to uplifting others through service or enterprise. It is a new beginning that will see us connecting Mary’s fascinating life with today’s youth.”