Red Thread leads volunteer effort in Linden

Aug 10, 2011 News

The Red Thread Youth Network in collaboration with the Victory Temple Seventh

Painting the pedestrian crossing in front of Harmony Secondary on Burnham Drive

Day Adventist Pathfinders and a group of young volunteers from the mining Town yesterday repainted three pedestrian crossings on Wismar – two on Burnham Drive, in front of the Harmony and New Silver City Secondary Schools respectively, and one on the One Mile main Road.
Most of the children in the Youth Network, who are drawn mostly from the Charlestown area and neighbouring communities, belong to the Government drop-in centre for children in Georgetown, Red Thread official Joy Marcus said.
Marcus pointed out that the focus of Red Thread as it relates to the Youth Network is to help young people to develop leadership skills, show them a better way of life, and teach them skills including how to cope with conflict.
“The group also had a three-week camp in Linden last year, and so we wanted to do it again, to give the children the opportunity of coming out of their communities and going to other places where they could learn to socialize and interact with youths from other parts of the country. We had initially planned to go to Essequibo this year, but we didn’t have enough money, so we came back here. They were however happy to return to Linden, because the people are always hospitable,” Marcus said.
The pedestrian painting project was coordinated by Red Thread, and according to a senior Official of the organization, the painting of the pedestrian crossings was Red Thread’s way of giving back to the Wismar community, for hospitality shown to them in the past.
“We decided to do the pedestrian crossings because of the accidents that occur here, so we wanted to brighten up the crossings so that they would be more clearly visible to motorists, who we hope would recognize that they need to slow down, and if necessary stop and allow pedestrians to cross, especially the school children.”
Marcus said that the groups from Linden were invited to join the Youth Network Group from Georgetown, so as to have more youths networking with each other, and collaborating to achieve a common goal.
The Youths are presently camping out at the Silvertown All Stars Youth Club. They were divided into four groups and are named after mountains in Guyana – Pakaraima, Mount Roraima, Akari and Kanuka.

Preparing to go to next pedestrian crossing

According to Marcus, the youths themselves are responsible for preparing their meals under supervision from the adults. Many of them had very little idea about cooking, but learnt on the ‘ground’, and were quite excited about the whole process.
The group along with their Linden counterparts also engaged in hiking and ‘bushcooking’ during their camping stint here.
Marcus noted that for many of the youths from Georgetown, the camp-out was their first, but the Linden Pathfinders have been camping and hiking for a long time, and as such are used to the undulating terrain of the mining town.
“It was hard, it was frightening but the children enjoyed it!” Marcus declared emphatically.
The pedestrian paintings were closely monitored by the local traffic police, and many residents of Wismar applauded the initiative by Red Thread.
“Let’s hope that the repainting of these crossings will eliminate or at least help to reduce accidents on these roads,” one man pointed out.
Recently two children, a brother and sister, were killed on the One Mile Public Road as they attempted to ride across the road at the pedestrian crossing there.