Voices from the Margins – Ida

Ida and her friend Tyrene outside her shop
We ain’t against the hotels, but we need new industries. Something where people can learn new skills; not all the time to clean the toilet. What they do, when they bring the hotel, they get us to clear the bush, clear the ground, and the big time jobs nobody gets them. Oh lord, only God knows. it's always been bad between Barbuda and Antigua, but this government is the worst.
Tourism was slowly coming back to Barbuda

We happened across Ida and her friend talking outside Ida’s property. Like many residents of Barbuda she was undertaking the slow process of rebuilding, hindered by the lack of promised funds and materials. These were of the generation that had experienced Caribbean life before Antigua and Barbuda gained independence in 1981. Ida had lived in Leicester for 16 years prior to coming back to her birth place.