Local Girl Guides go “green”

Aug 13, 2010 News

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The Guyana Girl Guides Association held a ‘Green Concert’ on Wednesday as they undertook a spate of activities centered on the environment and its protection. The members of the Guyana GOLD Team, which serves as the local arm of an international Girl Guide Organisation called Guiding Overseas Linked with Development (GOLD), were the marshalling forces behind the concert. The young ladies came together to perform a number of pieces designed to bring greater awareness of the environmental crisis facing the world.
Even the room was a study in environmental sustainability. The girls made decorations from recycled newsprint and other bio-degradable materials. They set up booths to make wind chimes with recycled bits and pieces as well as bracelets and other jewellery. But their creativity was not just confined to the concert or the keepsakes either since they even carried them out in their games and activities.
Drawn on the ground in brightly coloured chalk under the Girl Guides Pavilion in Brickdam where the concert was held, was a life-sized board game. Designed to be relevant to the girls’ cause, it had squares that read ‘Put Litter in a Bin – Move ahead three spaces’ and ‘Re-use bottle – Move ahead five spaces.’ The negative effects of littering were also included as well with squares that read ‘Flood! Litter blocks canal – Back to start’ and ‘Disease! – Go back eight places’.
The concert and the games are not the only elements of the Girl Guides’ campaign either. On Monday last they held a trash clean-up at the Georgetown Seawall, where they not only cleaned but spoke to the stallholders and vendors on the seawall as well as the patrons.
According to Taneka Caldeira, leader of the Guyana GOLD Team, there were mixed feelings from the vendors. She said that while some were receptive to their encouragement to act differently, others kept saying things like ‘Everyone else is doing it, so it doesn’t make much of a difference if I do it too’. She said that was the mentality which they were trying to fight while getting persons to realize that it was a ‘me thing’ and that the changes had to start with the individual.
Accompanying the Guyana GOLD Team were five UK GOLD team members who have come to Guyana to give their support to the local group. Leader of that team, Samantha Douglas, said that her team is made up of Guides from all over their country, with the one common trait being that they are all actively involved in Guiding. She said that the girls here are very involved and show lots of spirit in their activities.  According to Douglas, once the girls get an idea they go after it vigorously and the only thing she wished they would do more of was publicize their group and their activities.
Mrs. Jocelyne Josiah, Director of the Lions Club of Georgetown, Durban Park, also commented on her club’s involvement in the project. She noted that the intent was to support worthy projects such as this one, as they focus on issues which are close to the heart of the club’s members.

Cuban scholarship students set to leave

– Final batch for 2010

Guyana is hoping to increase the number of scholarships for Cuba, and this year an agreement is likely to be reached, says government.
This was disclosed Wednesday by Minister of Public Service, Dr. Jennifer Westford, as 18 medical students get ready to leave for Cuba on a six-year scholarship stay.
This is the final batch of students for this year.
The group, accompanied by Dr. Westford,  met President Bharrat Jagdeo on Wednesday at State House.
The potential students, according to a government statement, were drawn from across Guyana including the hinterland.
Minister Westford disclosed that Guyana and Cuba are to strike a negotiation for more students after President Jagdeo and a team travel to the Spanish-speaking island later this year.
Next year, the largest batch of 300 students will be returning to Guyana, bringing the aggregate of Cuban graduate doctors in Guyana to 750. More students are also expected home in 2012 and 2013.
After this, the focus of the scholarship programme will be directed to other specialty areas.
“We will be looking at more in the field of agriculture, engineering but we are not going to do a lot of undergraduate medicine,” Minister Westford said.
The Cuban Scholarship Programme started in 2002 when the Cuban Government offered Guyana 350 scholarships. It was extended in 2006 when President Jagdeo and Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro signed an agreement for a further 965 scholarships for the period 2006-2010.
The scholarships are offered in various disciplines including medicine, engineering, technology, agriculture and telecommunications.
The 2006 agreement also catered for four diagnostic and treatment centres to be constructed at Diamond, Suddie, Mahaicony and Leonora, and the establishment of a state-of-the-art ophthalmology facility at Port Mourant, Berbice.
All of these agreements have been fulfilled, the release said.
Mission Miracle was another component of the programme that led to thousands of Guyanese with eye ailments, including cataract, glaucoma and pterygium, traveling to Cuba in batches for surgical treatment.
The Mission Miracle programme ended in December 2007 after the new Ophthalmology Centre was built at Port Mourant and a number of students returning from Cuba as doctors boosted the complement of skills needed for such surgeries.
Diplomatic relations between Cuba and Guyana were established on December 8, 1972.

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