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Youths For Guyana volunteers continue to impress
The Youths for Guyana (YFG) Volunteer Group continues to impress with its various initiatives that are making a positive impact on the local environment.
Members of the YFG cleaning the drains in the Lodge area.
“Instead of standing up and saying ‘We want change’ as opposed to going, we go out and do it ourselves,” reported Shawneé Thompson, Public Relations Officer of the youth based organization when asked to elaborate on the merits of the organisation.
The YFG, a voluntary organisation, funded mainly by private citizens and overseas based Guyanese, consists of and is completely run by young people who want to see a change in Guyana.
Members assembled in the National Library’s Conference room, yesterday, in which the Habitat for Humanity Guyana hosted a Volunteer Orientation session aimed at encouraging youths to volunteer in order to help develop communities.
As opposed to the usual Saturday night syndrome where young adults ‘party til the morning’ and sleep-in on Sunday mornings, these spirited youths have a somewhat different agenda for Sunday mornings, where they host a cleanup campaign called ‘a block a week’. The ‘block a week’ clean up is one of the biggest projects currently on-going.
According to the YFG President, Orin Phillips, this cleanup campaign started in February last and it aims to improve the physical appearance of communities in and around Georgetown. Attired in long boots, gloves and protective masks and armed with spades, forks and rakes, these valiant volunteers venture out into the streets, clearing overgrown bushes in drains; removing the waste that clogs such drains and clearing the roadways of scattered garbage. So far, four communities, mainly in the Lodge area have benefited from this “keep Guyana beautiful” initiative.
Although the ‘Block a week’ cleanup campaign is the leading activity that is currently undertaken by the group, it is definitely not the only initiative recognized.
Since its establishment, the volunteer group has beautified the Georgetown Seawalls, clearing the area of garbage from Camp Street to the Pegasus Hotel; hosted a two week summer camp at the YFG headquarters on Bent Street, Georgetown, which attracted some 87 youths of ages between four and 18 years old; fed several homeless people within the vicinity of Georgetown and started a 1000 book drive for the purpose of donating the literature to various orphanages and youth organisations. They have already acquired more than 150 books in this regard.
Apart from these, YFG members intend to accumulate a number of ‘slow down’ signs to be mounted in various school zones and to institute a variety of projects by the end of this year, all for the purpose of “making a positive change in society and to give back to the community”. These include a literacy programme which is intended to run from September 2013 to July 2014 and their second annual summer camp in August.
Members of the YFG volunteer group have so far sought many methods to publicize their projects in an effort to expand and have a wider volunteer base.
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