Serving with distinction at home and beyond…Nowrang Persaud is a ‘Special Person’

Jul 20, 2014 News

---

“I have always tried to practice what I taught.”

By Leon Suseran
Nowrang Persaud’s skills in the areas of Human Resource Management have been well-sought after by many companies

and organizations, including the United Nations. He has served as adviser in Human Resources Management in practically all the Regions of the world starting with India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives, then moving on to the Headquarters’ duty stations in New York, Geneva, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
This was followed with an assignment closer home as Regional Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean until 1995 when he was invited to return to Guyana as Director of Human Resources with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) followed by a similar duty with Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL).
Subsequent to full-time work, he was being offered Consultancy assignments by the UN and from 2003 accepted several assignments in East and Southern Africa and the Far East in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
He has given valuable service to the sugar industry, where his professional career was nurtured. He served the education system as well as being instrumental in the establishment of the Hindu College at Cove & John, East Coast Demerara.
Origins and Growing-up
This Number 47 Village, Corentyne boy who grew up in Blairmont Estate, West Bank Berbice in a large, poor family when times were very hard, rose and lived up to the expectation of his family and community. Little did he know that over the next few decades he would have served his country well, both here and abroad.
At age two, Persaud’s parents separated, so along with his brother and sister, “we moved with my mother to live with my grandparents at Nigg Village, Corentyne.”
“When I was about four my mother re-married a fine gentleman at Blairmont Estate, who was a model surrogate father. I grew up happily at Blairmont Estate among a mixture of thirteen brothers, sisters, half- and step-brothers and sisters all living in a typical Estate logie.”
He noted that his parents were poor sugar workers so as children, “we developed self-survival skills early and indulged in many activities aimed at supplementing the efforts of our parents to feed and clothe us such as catching fish, farming, cutting firewood and fetching potable water from the ‘stand-pipe’ located quite some distance from where we lived. All of this while regularly attending Primary school, Hindi School and Temple, and of course playing cricket and swimming for fun, as often as time permitted.”

“I vividly recall driving cows around the rice-field “kharian” where the cows went around a turnstile mashing the paddy to separate the grains from the trash; for that I was paid twelve cents per day which often lasted more than eight hours.”
He also recalls ‘picking’ tennis balls at the Blairmont Estate Senior Staff compound for eight cents per afternoon and taking food containers for his uncle at work for “small-pieces” from his aunt; cutting grass to feed the cow his father kept to supply milk, some of which they sold to neighbours. He then attended the Berbice Educational Institute (BEI) in New Amsterdam, which he was able to do only after working as a labourer part-time on the Estate to accumulate money for the school fees and other necessities.

Teaching career
After High School, Persaud started to work as a school teacher in 1956 at the Wash Clothes Canadian Mission School, a primary school located at a place pejoratively called “Road End” up the Mahaicony Creek.
After two terms at this school, “I was visited one night by Swami Purnanda, a Hindu missionary from India with whom I had interacted previously as a Hindu activist at Blairmont. Swami Ji was then establishing the Hindu monastery and cultural/religious organization known as the Bharat Sevashram Sangha at Cove & John, E.C.D.
He approached me to discuss the idea of forming a High School at the Ashram in Cove & John. After sitting in his little blue Volkswagen car for more than two mid-night hours, in the mosquito-infested yard of my temporary residence at Wash Clothes, Mahaicony, we agreed that I would quit my ‘prized’ first teaching job and join with him to establish the High School at Cove & John.

The High School which was first called the East Coast High School started with 39 Students but very soon that number grew to over 200 when the name was changed to Hindu College.”
Persaud then returned to his Alma Mater, BEI, as a Senior Master. After a few years there, he won a nationally competitive Cadetship from Bookers Sugar Estates Ltd, the fore-runner of GuySuCo, which facilitated his studies in England and career change to Human Resources Management. That was the launching pad for bigger things to come.

CAREER IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Mr. Persaud’s career in Human Resource Management started in 1963 when he won the scholarship from Bookers Sugar Estates Ltd, “which allowed me to proceed to England in pursuit of formal qualifications in the field of Personnel Management and Industrial Relations.”
“This indeed was a fortuitous development in that for some time prior to 1963, I had been toying with the idea of going to England on my own to study Law. As a matter of fact I had already gained admission to three Law schools in England but, as fate would have it, I could not raise the $347 that was then required for a boat trip to London,” he said.
Upon returning from England in 1965 he was posted as Assistant Personnel Manager in charge of the Rose Hall Estate Personnel Department, as the Human Resources Department was then called. Subsequently, he was identified for upper mobility as an Administrative Manager, as the head of an Estate was then called.
However, because of changing circumstances within the country at that time (1973) he decided to migrate to Canada where his career again bloomed to the point where in 1976 he was responsible for setting up the new Ministry of Energy of the Ontario government, following the OPEC crisis in 1976. He was appointed Senior Personnel Officer.

Shortly thereafter, in 1980, Persaud was offered an opportunity to join the United Nations which allowed him to practice Human Resource Management at the International level.
“In this capacity I served as adviser in Human Resources Management in practically all the Regions of the world starting with India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Maldives, then moving on to the Headquarters’ duty stations in New York, Geneva, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.”
From 1980 – 1984, he was Regional Personnel Officer for the UNICEF Regional Office for South Central Asia; 1985 – 1989: Recruitment and Placement Officer, UNICEF Headquarters, New York, USA; and 1990 –1995: Regional Chief of Human Resources   UNICEF Regional office for the Americas. He was later appointed Human Resource Director of two companies, DDL and GuySuCo, during the period 1996 – 2004.
Self-Development
Consistent with his belief that the best form of development is self-development, “I have always tried to practice what I taught. In the same vein, it should be noted that most of my professional development was done during my working career. In the process I gained the highest diplomas and professional memberships from accredited Institutions of learning in the field of Human Resources Management, including Fellowship of the Institute of Personnel Development (FCIPD).”
In addition, in 2008, Persaud decided to return to university for an updated programme of intense study at the University of London where he graduated with another Post Graduate Degree in 2009 in the field of International Human Resources Management and Employee Relations.

COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES
From boyhood, Persaud has been involved in voluntary, social and community activities and services from which he notes that he derived much personal satisfaction.

“In the last two years I have achieved what might be termed the capstone of my efforts in community development. This is the establishment of modern facilities for cremations as represented in the Blairmont Crematorium and Memorial Garden at Blairmont Estate, West Bank Berbice, where I grew up and from where a much needed service is being provided, especially for the residents of Western Berbice.”
When asked what were the main highlights of his career, he responded by saying that there were several. He alluded to the time he became Principal of the Hindu College. Additionally, he mentioned that he was the first local to be elevated to the level of Personnel Manager and “… to have started at Blairmont where I grew up, worked as a labourer and eventually to end up as an Executive at the Estate was quite a major achievement in my life…it was a sort of unprecedented, meteoric rise.”
He was quite pleased about his achievements over the years, including his time spent setting up the Ministry of Energy in Ontario, Canada, after the OPEC Oil Crisis in 1976, as well as developing a job-evaluation system at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children which became a model for other hospitals in Metropolitan Toronto.
Persaud stated that he has just finished a consultancy job with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which involved reviewing the entire Human Resource Management System at the Office of the Auditor General.
When asked if his work today is difficult, he said that it is very time- consuming.
“You are required to make reports and recommendations within a certain time-span and that’s probably the most—it’s being able to quickly identify the issues that need attention and coming up with pragmatic solutions.” He noted that his work requires him to apply general knowledge in a particular context, because “it’s not a one-size- fits-all-kind-of-thing…it has to be context-specific”.
“If I had to, I would do it all over again and I am not in any mood to give up. At 77, I am ready to go for another 77!” Currently, he is quite busy doing other consultancy work. He writes articles too in the dailies in Guyana, expressing his views on various national issues. He also finds time to focus a bit on his community work.
For leisure, Mr. Persaud loves to watch a good game of cricket, play dominoes and enjoys a social drink now and again.
In a nutshell, Nowrang Persaud is a qualified, accomplished professional in the areas of Operations and Human Resource Management, Organization Development, Training and Capacity Building with over 30 years of hands-on and consulting experience in the private and public sectors in the developing, developed and international fields of operations. He has a good grasp of the Behavioral Sciences relevant to Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations; strong analytical, communication, negotiating, writing, training, capacity-building, coaching and mentoring skills; proven organizational, administrative, general management, mobilization and coordinating skills and experience.
Endowed with those special qualities and skills, we are convinced that Mr. Persaud is more than deserving of his place in our ‘Special Person’ column this week.

---

---