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Mount Ayanganna Lodge makes donation to Mahaica Children’s Home
Lodge officials donate articles to the Mahaica Children’s Home.
By Amar Panday
The Mount Ayanganna Lodge made a donation in the form of various laundry and toiletry articles to the Mahaica Children’s Home, on Tuesday.
Officials from the Lodge, at a simple presentation at the Mahaica Children’s Home, while expressing season greetings to the residents, noted that this gesture was being done to make their Christmas a little more comfortable.
Victor Sampson, Deputy District Grandmaster of the Lodge, said that a fundamental tenet of the Lodge philosophy entails working with and assisting the less fortunate.
He issued the Lodge’s commitment of continuous support for the children’s home of Mahaica.
He pointed out that the Lodge is engaged in various other initiatives to make manifest its espoused commitment to the poor and vulnerable.
Dawn Hunte, the administrator of the Mahaica Children’s Home, expressed gratitude to the Lodge, positing that the items would indeed be very valuable to the home.
She said that working with a limited budget is a constant hindrance and thus such philanthropic gestures are always welcome and needed.
Hunte, a trained social worker, who has been with the home since 2003 said that the Mahaica Children’s Home which falls under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, caters for the all round, physical, spiritual and social development of the child.
She says she works closely with Minister Manickchand who she says is very supportive of the children’s home.
The mission statement of the home, she disclosed, as “to act as a safe haven for children in difficult circumstances.”
It was disclosed that the children of the home are not street children, but rather those who have found their way into the home as a result of parental neglect and abuse as well as court judgments.
She said she vehemently refuses the label of an orphanage. Instead, she asserted, what she has worked tirelessly to establish is a home in every sense of that word for the children.
Hunte said that every effort is made to allow and enable the children to pursue a normal course of growth.
Thus, children from the home would attend regular primary and secondary schools. This would allow them to acquire an academic education which they would use to rebuild their lives.
In this regard, Hunte told Kaieteur News that Courts Guyana Ltd has sponsored two tutors for the late starters in the school system.
Additionally, the Ministry pays for the extra lessons for the pupils preparing to sit the CSEC exam.
Moreover, she said that in addition to securing computer, technical and vocational training, the home has made available various courses at the Carnegie School of Home Economics in an effort to facilitate the requisite training for the children of the home.
Also, the home has a small poultry and livestock operation in which the children are taught valuable lessons that in turn will serve them well in the future.
The social worker pointed out to Kaieteur News that even when children reach a certain age and are inclined to leave the home, she would not remove their names from the register for the following 18 months, allowing her to monitor their progress in a harsh world.
This she disclosed as the ultimate goal of the home; to produce an individual who could be productively and meaningfully reintegrated into society.
Hunte emphasized that as administrator of the home, every effort is made to respect the religious and cultural component of the children.
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