Enterprise Support Group USA makes life easier for their fellow villagers

Apr 05, 2010 News

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Former residents of Enterprise on the East Coast of Demerara, now residing in the United States of America, are continuing to ensure that life for their less fortunate villagers back home is less burdensome.
At least three families from the Enterprise community have benefitted significantly from the benevolence of their countrymen abroad, while other families continue to receive tangible support.

Within the past few months, the Enterprise Support Group, New York Incorporated has built one new house, renovated another and has provided assistance to a nine- year old girl who is stricken with polio.
Padmawattie Singh, whose husband Sukhram Dhanai disappeared while working in the East Coast Demerara backlands and is now feared dead was left to fend for her three young children.
The home she was living in was in dire need of repairs and with her meager public assistance, there was no way that she could have done it on her own.
The roof was leaking, the windows were left incomplete and the small verandah had fallen apart.
She heard about the enterprise group which is headed by A. Rickeeram (Harold) and with the encouragement of neighbours she decided to approach them.
It did not take the organisation too long to unanimously agree that she needed help.
“They ask me wha help me need and I tell dem whatever help they could give me I gon accept,” she said when this newspaper visited her at her newly renovated house on Good Friday.

“I now feel comfortable, yeah. Me glad because that was another stress,” she added.
In addition to the repairs to her house, Singh has also been receiving $10,000 per months to assist her with living expenses.
Singh said that ever since her husband disappeared she has been praying night and day for assistance and it came in the form of the Enterprise Support Group.
For almost all her life, Dhanwantie Sundarlall grew up in a house that could have fallen at any given moment.
Her mother, Sahajee, who suffered a stroke recently and her sister were in no position to change their wretched fortunes.
But when some members of the group visited Guyana and saw the appalling conditions they were living in, it moved them to rectify the situation.
Now at the end of the project, Sundarlall and the rest of the family are resting comfortably in a spanking new two-bedroom house on stilts.
And to make life more comfortable for her mother who has a problem climbing the stairs, the enterprise support group threw in a concrete bedroom on the ground floor for good measure.
“I want to thank them for helping us. No longer we gon feel like the house gon fall down,” Sundarlall said.
That was not the end of the assistance they received. Two brand news beds were added to really make life comfortable.

“We more than comfortable now,” Sundarlall said.
The elderly Sahajee said that with her new home she no longer has to sleep with a bucket next to her to catch the water from her once leaking roof whenever it rained.
Nine years ago, Savitry Eakram’s daughter, Rajani Persaud, was born with severe polio in her feet and could only move around with the assistance of others.
Eakram had nowhere to turn to and had almost resigned herself to having to care for her daughter all her life but that was until the Enterprise Support Group stepped in last year February.
“Somebody tell me about the group and they saw her and they tek information about she,” Eakram told Kaieteur News.
She was so surprised by the swiftness of their response.
The group provided Eakram’s daughter with a caliper which assists with stretching her muscles and bones.
Although nine year old Rajani does not go to school with the device, it certainly goes a long way in assisting with her leading some sort of a normal life and she is fast adjusting it.
“I never expected them (group) to respond so fast,” Eakram said.
According to Rasheed Baksh of the group’s local steering committee, the organisation has grown by leaps and bounds since it started and there is now greater scope for persons to receive more assistance.
“More people are getting to know about our group and more people want help from it. There are several people who still need help in Enterprise and we’re trying as hard as possible to get help to them,” Baksh said.
The purpose of the Enterprise Support Group is to raise funds, identify and support charitable activities by providing materials and financial assistance to the needy and underprivileged peoples and other charitable organisations of our Enterprise communities here in Guyana and in the USA.
It also provides assistance for support programmes and activities to improve their social and economic well-being, health-care, and educational standards through the promotion of education, sports and culture.

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