NEGLECT AND GREED

Jul 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

I once asked a young mother when was the last time she took her children to the play park.
“Play park?” she answered. “They don’t have that around here.”
I then asked the children whether they knew to swim. They said yes. I then asked where they usually swam. Their answer horrified me. They pointed to a trench across from where they lived.
There was a time when there was hardly a Guyanese who did not know about taking a dip in a trench. Most of the older generation learnt to swim in canals and at the koker mouths.
But that was a long time ago. This is the 21st century and Guyana has made tremendous strides over the years. Yet it is disconcerting to know that many children can still be found swimming in canals.
Last weekend, two children died after they ended up swimming in a canal near to their home. The canal was reportedly used for irrigation purposes and the children, who had swam there before, may not have known that the water level had risen, and therefore they ended up drowning.
This is a very sad tale. The parents and the community to which the children belong have been plunged into a state of mourning.
While you cannot directly blame the government for this, the incident raises the question about access to recreational facilities throughout Guyana, as well as their limited numbers, especially water parks. As such, children wanting to partake of some fun often end up placing their lives at risk by having to go to unsupervised and unsuited areas to swim.
Better can and should be done. In almost every community in Guyana, there is a shortage of parks and recreational facilities. This is stifling the social development of our children.
One of the excuses made by local authorities is that even when they set aside land for recreational purposes, it is underutilised. But there is an explanation for this. Most often the reason why these facilities are not being fully utilised is that they are not properly kept and managed.
You simply cannot leave a wide open space and expect persons to utilise it. It needs swings and slides and other such things to attract and encourage children to make use of it. It needs spray fountains where children can go with their parents and soak themselves on a hot day. These are things which do not cost a lot and which can allow parents to spend quality time with their children.
It is the lack of these facilities that forces many children to stray into the backlands looking for a suitable canal to swim, and as we know from reports, many a child has reached his or her death in these waterways.
Having play parks including water parks in every community would also reduce idleness. Children would engage in purposeful activity and therefore would be less inclined to end up in bad company.
Instead, however, of having more parks, what we are having is less. In some housing schemes, land initially set aside for recreation has been converted into lots. It would be revealing if a survey is done to ascertain just whose hands some of these lots ended up in. And at the same time, by reassigning former playfields to others, family life is being affected. There is absolutely no need for this.
Guyana has land, lots of land. It may be costly to develop, but we do have extensive land on the coast which can be developed affordably. There is no need for every nook and cranny to be used for either some business or housing development.
Reserves should be kept free and land should be set aside in every community for playfields for sports such as cricket and football. At the same time there should be recreational and water parks where families can take their kids.
It is sad to know that those two young children drowned. They had nowhere else to swim, and even when the Olympic-size pool is opened, such children will not have access because it will be too far away from most of them. The facility is also unlikely to be used for small children.
Better can and should be done. All it requires is for less greed and better planning.
People do not only need house lots. They also need facilities whereby after a hard day at school, children can be taken by their parents to have fun, to get some exercise, and at the same time to be safe.
That is not happening today, and the reason for this is neglect and greed – neglect of public facilities and greed by those who wish to gobble up public land.

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NEGLECT AND GREED

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