Arya Samaj Humanitarian 2011 mission concludes

Aug 17, 2011 News

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… follow- up visits find some families not taking care of homes that were donated

President of the New Jersey Arya Samaj Humantarian Mission (NJASHM), Pandit Suresh Surgim recently conducted follow- up visits to various families across Berbice which the charitable organization helped over the past years but was a bit discouraged to discover at least one family who – two years after the home was built for them— have not strived to improve their living situation.
More so, that family, whose home at Reliance, East Canje, was built in 2009 at a cost of US$6,000, has allowed the structure to deteriorate and become overtaken by huge bushes.
The owner got the keys to her new concrete home on August 28, 2009 from Pandit Sugrim. The 69-year old woman had said in 2009 that it was a new beginning for her as well as her 50-year old son. The home was constructed in 10 days, free of charge by Memorex Construction Company, a subsidy of AMACO Inc. in New Amsterdam. The Humanitarian Mission supplied all the necessary material with the help of well-wishers.

“I can’t really tell you how I feel. I can’t believe how I feel. I see the house but I can’t say how I feel”, the woman said in 2009. The woman previously lived in an old structure for almost two generations, prior to the Humanitarian Mission building the home for her.
Prior to 2009, the roof leaked, many nights the woman and her son could not get any rest since they were up dodging raindrops. “I prayed for many years for God to get us out, to help us get a house, and out of the blues they find me”, she had said .
Two years later on a recent visit to the home this past week, Pandit Sugrim was shocked to discover the home in a bad physical state, with large bushes around and over a dozen dogs living in the home, with the family. Upon seeing Pandit Sugrim pulling up at the home, the man and his mother quickly hid themselves, and disappeared but the house was open and the dogs barked.
“It’s a very sad, heartbreaking situation to know that our Guyanese-Americans….through the benevolence of our brothers and sister who have migrated from Guyana and went to other parts of the world through their contributions….that we are truly blessed to come home and make a difference, and we are trying to help families who are living below the poverty levels”, Pandit Sugrim told Kaieteur News after the visit.
He has since regretted helping the family who neglected their building.
“I am so sad to see the status of that environment that they are living in. I truly, truly made a mistake in the kind of a sense of choosing them as a recipient, because I really thought that the situation they were living in was a family that needed to be given a chance for tomorrow.
“After my inspection—as we have inspected all the other houses that we have built—it really bothered me to know how can someone live in that situation knowing the fact that somebody has come home (to Guyana), to invest $7,000 to 8,000 U.S. dollars where you have not spent a penny, they have given you this house free of cost, just for you to live, to maintain, to clean your surroundings, and to be in a happy and healthy environment, but unfortunately, this family did not look at it this way,” he reflected
“While many recipients of new homes built by our organization have improved their living standards while maintaining the properties and uphold the values of maintaining their properties, some of them have excelled, extended [their properties], some of them have remained very dormant, but this one in Canje, it really bothered me…,” he lamented.
“A man cannot even clean his surroundings; clean his environment that he lives in. What is he expecting, an NGO is going to come and pay somebody to weed the bushes around his house? What would it have cost him just to take a cutlass or do something, he has a decent job,” Pandit Sugrim said.
The man is employed with the Region 6 Administration as a Drainage and Irrigation worker.
“It’s a gentlemen that works for the NDC, and he cleans the surrounding of other communities but he cannot clean the environment he lives in… and that is very sad, it’s nothing but total laziness,” Sugrim opined.
The President stated that even though the family has caused him to be a bit discouraged about future projects, he cannot allow that to “make other potential recipients victims”. He stated that he will look at cases now with greater scrutiny to make sure that families who really deserve it get their due. “I want to see children’s report cards; I want to make sure they are in school, I want to see family history,” he asserted.
Pandit Sugrim said that the organization is now revamping and taking a keener look at their recipients to make sure that systems are put in place by the recipients to maintain their homes to make sure that they treasure and appreciate what ““our brothers and sisters are doing for them”.
He said that numerous other families have approached the U.S-based organization for homes and that the organization is going to try to educate and empower those persons first. Recently, several families opened the doors to their new homes, built with assistance from the NJASHM, but the families will repay some of the money in monthly installments on an interest- free basis.
Kaieteur News visited several home owners and families whom the organization helped several years ago at Rose Hall Town, Whim, Nurney on the Corentyne and Bush Lot, all of whom are making progress today and building upon, what they had been given a few years ago.

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