Betty Luckham was born in British Guyana (South America) now the independent Republic of Guyana. Betty settled in the UK in 1959 and was employed as a Community Development Worker by the Commission in the United Kingdom for the West Indies Federation.
She was one of the teachers at Ducie High school in Moss Side, and subsequently, after graduating from the University of Manchester she worked at Manchester City Council Education Department. As a member of the Equal Opportunities Ethnic Minorities Team, her work with schools involved promoting the development of the policy “Education for a Multicultural Society.”
After taking early retirement, Betty was employed by the Catholic Association for Racial Justice to organise the first Congress of Black Catholics. In terms of the community’s economic development strategy, Betty Luckham was one of the founding members of Cariocca Enterprise (Manchester) Ltd. This represented an outcome of the initiative and perseverance of members of the West Indian Organisation’s Co-ordinating Committee (WIOCC).
As Cariocca’s first secretary she was responsible for initiating the unique name Cariocca. The ‘IOCC’ in Cariocca is a direct extract from ‘WIOCC’ and ‘CAR’ represents the ‘WIOCC’ Caribbean roots. Her work with women has involved chairing the Louise Da-Cocodia Education Trust, International Women’s Day Conference declaring the work of inspirational mothers in our community.