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THIS CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE THIS!

Apr 07, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

To this day, I do not know how it happened. But the fact that it happened, has taught me an important lesson in life about not breaking a promise to a child.
It was always my practice that whenever I made a trip to the city, I would return with goodies for my grandchild. She would look forward to me bringing back her favourite pastries and sweets on my sojourns to the city.
Thus one day, I made a promise to her that I bring her a special treat. I promised her ice cream.
I do not know how it happened, but I simply forgot on that day to bring back the ice cream.
I will never forget the look on the poor child’s face when she discovered that I had not brought the ice cream.  If you had cut me that day, you would have been hard pressed to find blood. I had forgotten to do something and the guilt was overwhelming. She said nothing but the hurt was all over her face. I had broken a cardinal rule: never break a promise to a child.
My conscience has never recovered from that lapse in memory on my part. I had shattered a child’s expectations. This is the unkindest cut of all.
This past week I recalled this story about my broken promise to bring back ice cream when I read about the horrible manner in which the top CSEC student in Guyana has been treated by the government.
This child who brought glory and honour to Guyana, who no doubt wrote all of those subjects – I believe it was nineteen- in the expectation of winning the coveted President’s Award Scholarship to study at a university of her choice in a field of her choice, was informed by letter from the Public Service Ministry that she can pursue studies either in Guyana, China or Cuba in three fields.
This reversal of what the child had expected, this shattering of a child’s dream, is not a case of a lapse in memory on anyone’s part. It was lapse in judgment, a clumsy lapse in judgment. It should never have happened.
There should never have been also the insulting attempt at justifying why the child was offered a scholarship to study in Guyana, Cuba or China. That attempt sought to place the foul up as resulting from the fact that there has been no Appropriation Act since the National Assembly has been dissolved.
That explanation is an insult to the people of this country and to the child. Even if there is a problem with the fact that there is no voted provision for the scholarship, why not write to the child informing her that the matter will be resolved after the elections.
But this is not what the government did. No, it was offering the child a completely different scholarship than the one she had expected. The explanation offered by the government does not hold water with me or for that matter with scores of Guyanese who are deeply upset with what has happened to this child’s expectations.
There has been a foul up. All governments make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and has lapses of judgment. Even the Peeper who has a memory of an elephant messed up when he forgot to buy that ice cream and hurt his grandchild’s feelings, an act that haunts me onto this day.
All governments should be big enough to admit to their mistakes. No one is perfect. What is important is not to deny the foul-up but to make it right. You will get more credit for making a wrong right than if you have not in the first place done a wrong. The government should make it right and not do what it has done to this child.
Make this thing right! Honour your obligations! Do not hide behind pitiful excuses. Make things right! Admit a mistake was made, admit to fault in judgment and remedy this situation! This child does not deserve this!
(To be continued)

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