Forty Linden students make up first Linden Water Conservation Corps.

Sep 11, 2017 News

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Forty students drawn from secondary schools in Linden as well as the Linden Technical Institute were over the course of five weeks exposed to proper water shed management, including the clearing and desilting of areas in proximity to water sheds across Linden.
The students, who were branded the Linden Water Corps 2017, were divided into groups with each group assigned a watershed.
Environmental Management Consultant and coordinator of the program Samuel Wright, said that the Linden Water Conservation Corps is expected to be an annual project that would involve young people across Linden.
Recently, the students were honored at a graduation exercise at the Harmon Secondary School. Each student was presented with a certificate of completion. The students were also given the opportunity to share their experiences and what they had learnt about the various challenges evident at the different water sheds in the community.
The Linden Conservation Corps is a youth leadership and environmental initiative dedicated to increasing the awareness of the critical environmental challenges facing the Community of linden. It provides a water and watershed-based overview that would prepare the youths to actively address some of those challenges.  Linden embodies five sub water sheds, including Dakouria, Katabulli and Victory Valley.
The Corp is envisioned as an annual five-week programme (July–August) for Secondary school students entering their final year.  A different study area within the various sub-watersheds will be selected annually, according to coordinator Samuel Wright.
In reflecting on the programme, Wright said that the students became “different people” as they got close to nature, as they explored, assessed and later enhanced the areas around the water sheds. That, he said, told him that students of geography and similar subjects needed to go out into the fields more, and so experience the environment that impacts their lives.
In giving a background to the programme, Wright observed, “Water is ubiquitous in Linden; it is everywhere. A large number of Linden’s environmental challenges are related to the movement of water and the impact of human and land-based activities on water. These challenges include erosion, flooding, contamination of the river, creeks and springs, deforestation, and landslides.   The ravines and depressions throughout the landscape are used as urban waste dumps.  Much of these challenges are the direct result of uninformed human practices and cultural preferences.”
He added that watershed management, including education and awareness of the related natural processes, provides a useful overview/perspective for the sustained reversal and or mitigation of the impacts.
He said it is particularly important that the youths be aware of the problems, and educated to address them. The students learnt among other things that there exists in the Victory Valley area more than three hundred springs. Many of those, they found, were running through piles of garbage that had accumulated over the years.
“I estimate that there are over three hundred springs in Victory Valley, not in all of Linden- in Victory Valley alone. Almost every yard has a spring running through it, but then Victory Valley was condemned almost thirty years ago because it was unlivable. I think that it was not unlivable, just that people did not understand what it took to live in Victory Valley. Some people stayed in Victory Valley…”
Wright noted that as a consequence, what had happened over the years is that because it was condemned, there was no garbage collection.  “Now let’s look at this scenario, we have three hundred springs pouring water, twenty four hours a day, coming down the hill, and people are throwing garbage, outside   their yards, and some people have been doing this for thirty years, so now what we have is three hundred springs flowing through thirty years of garbage, and that (water) is flowing into the Demerara river.
So what we have been doing is by condemning Victory Valley and not looking back at it, we are creating an environment that is actually contaminating the waters of Guyana; because the waters of Guyana are interconnected”, Wright declared. The participants were drawn from upper level Secondary School students in Linden. They were divided into four groups of ten, with each group assigned a leader. Team leaders were second and third – year UG students studying Geography, Environmental Science or Engineering and Secondary School science teachers.
Each team also had a secretary/scribe, and an equipment manager.
Objectives and Outcomes
The primary objective of the programme was to educate and orient young Lindeners to be good stewards of their environment through the perspective of watersheds.
The projected outcome is forty Linden youths provided with informed perspectives of the critical water and environmental challenges in Linden based on both theory and hands-on experience.
It is hoped that the participants carry an environmental perspective into any discipline that they pursue. By working in teams they would learn to cooperate to achieve common goals, Wright declared.
The weekly schedule included four days of field work and one day of classroom/lecture.  The programme covered Introduction to watersheds; Data Collection and management; Risks to Linden surface water quality; Concept of healthy creeks; life-cycle of creeks; map, monitor and clean-up of creeks; limited water quality testing; Condition  assessment of the Wismar foothills and overview of the related environmental challenges; repair of select trails and foot paths in the foothills; use of GPS in mapping and report writing.
In addition to lectures and field work, participants were required to complete homework and internet-based research.  Each team was also tasked with producing a report on its activities. The programme cost approximately $4M.
The program was funded by the Ministry of Communities, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Department of Education and GWI. Wright said that the program was welcomed by all concerned, including the Headteachers of the various schools.
He encouraged the Ministry of Communities, the Mayor and Town Council, GWI and other major stakeholders “to go back into Victory Valley. The students were given a stipend of $15,000 yesterday.
Many of them expressed satisfaction with the project and were excited to receive their stipends.Joanna Mackenzie of the Mackenzie High School said that she was very excited about the programme from which she had learnt a lot. “I learnt even more about the environment that I had done at school. We also learnt a lot about the various springs and other waterways, and we even learnt to use the GPS.”
Mackenzie said that she would use some of the money to purchase text books and other school supplies. Similar sentiments were expressed by other students. (Enid Joaquin)

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