The Creators’ Coven- Young Professionals’ series

Jan 08, 2023 News

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By Zena Henry

Education was my key to success! -Policy and Governance Specialist, Ms. Dianna Rajcumar

Kaieteur News – The Creators’ Coven’s Young Professionals’ Series seeks to introduce some of the brightest and most promising minds the country has to offer; their backgrounds, challenges and secrets to their success.  These professionals come from various walks of life, each with their own intriguing stories. For 40-year-old Policy and Governance Specialist, Dianna Rajcumar, her very humble beginnings was the driving force behind her will to achieve economic freedom, through academic means. She said that meant her taking responsibility for her own success and developing the correct traits toward the endgame.

“If being disciplined and responsible was a person that would definitely be me!” she told the Coven, during an interview with the magazine earlier this week. “These are perhaps the two most guiding principles which enveloped my graduate and post graduate studies and public service career at the local and regional level.” Growing up in the 1980’s into the 90’s, Rajcumar said that the socio-economic conditions were very different then, and provided every reason for her to want a better life for herself.

“I grew up in a poverty-stricken community and forging a living was literally “survival of the fittest”, barely there with surface breathing! I think that the circumstances then built me rather than break me, as I was determined and driven to be free of the conditions of abject poverty.” Rajcumar said she recalled clearly, the banging chant of her teachers reinforcing that “education is the key to success”.

“Well, I must have taken that seriously especially after I realized in standard one that I was the only odd one wearing an old brown uniform surrounded by students all clad in their new blue uniforms! The school decided to change the color of the uniform and I turned up on the first day of the new school term clad in my old brown uniform! And I recalled vividly the teacher’s astonishment, almost like a scolding episode – “didn’t your mother read your report card about the change in colour of uniforms, I bet she didn’t even see you got first place in class!,” Rajcumar told the Coven that her mother did read her report card, she just could not afford to buy a new school uniform.

But the episode did not deter the young Rajcumar. She said at the time, she stood out like a brown island in a sea of blue with her plastic bag filled with school books and red polka dot ribbons, which in no way complemented her uniform or were remotely close to ribbons fit for school. “And it was worse when the rain fell. I would turn up to school with a freshly picked “puri leaf” umbrella; nothing would stop me from walking the journey to school!” she exclaimed.

Determined to succeed, Rajcumar said that being deprived meant she walked to a friend’s house on many occasions to use textbooks to complete homework. She acknowledges this as a defining moment in her childhood- “to be mentally strong, undeterred, humble and appreciative that at least they allowed me to attend school. It later dawned on me that I was on the right track that childhood education correlates with lifting a community out of poverty and ending the inter-generational transmission of poverty as my parents hadn’t the opportunity to complete a primary education.” Having to be responsible for her own success came like a default mode, Rajcumar said. There was no other available route out of poverty but education.

Rajcumar said she owes her discipline toward her studies to her mother and her strong will. She said together, her parents worked tirelessly, fearlessly and without pride in the informal sector to ensure the family was fed, sheltered and attended school. “My brothers and I who are now all professionals in our fields have had our fair share of joining our parents in adding to the income on weekends – bundling the grass and cleaning houses! And after school was not all play but it included selling at a little stand and supplying shops in the neighborhood with eatables.” Honouring those little responsibilities helped to build character that transcends academic and professio

nal life, Rajcumar said.

Fast track to high school, the Governance Specialist said she was surrounded by three brothers who all made it to Guyana’s coveted top schools. “I was not part of that league,” Rajcumar said. Looking back, she said being the only girl amongst the boys came with its own challenges. “There was an inequity of roles in the household, which still exist today more so in cultured agrarian communities – that girls are expected/indoctrinated to do household chores and boys should not.” She contended that her brothers had more time to focus on studying, while she was expected to do the same and still complete her regular household duties.

Rajcumar was passionate about this issue. She insisted that the equalizing of opportunities for young girls is paramount because it reduces early marriages which creates dependency for uneducated young females and increases the incidences of domestic violence and suicide. The domino effect of this imbalance in opportunity is that it adds no economic, innovative or creative value to the community, Rajcumar said.  She noted that her unequal race did not allow her best results but she was not daunted. “I didn’t even score a grade one at CSEC,” she told the Coven. I was content that my grade twos and threes qualified me to enter the University of Guyana! That was another defining moment in my life, there was no turning back then!”

At UG, Rajcumar said she survived by literally burning the midnight oil to study, as there was neither electric power nor internet service in the community in which she resided. She said owning a computer was a farfetched thought. “That meant hours of work in the library and then a risky walk home from University after late night classes.” But I was still not deterred, as I was conditioned to the survival of the fittest concept, the scholar said.

Rajcumar said that by the time she started working at a young age at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she had already attained a diploma in Public Communication (2003) and a Degree in International Relations (2008). She served as a regional public servant at the CARICOM Secretariat and a few years later was granted an Australia Awards Scholarship, from a highly competitive process – one of 40 students from across the Caribbean to access this opportunity.  Rajcumar continued that she completed a Graduate Diploma in Public Administration; Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Diplomacy (2014-2016) at the Australian National University.

The academic related that throughout her professional and academic life, two of the biggest challenges she faces are inequality in opportunities for girls/women and the presumption of being too young to be placed in high level positions. “I recalled, at one Institution, my superior was accosted with a comment “of employing a young girl, out of high school! But I was not – with a diploma and degree behind my name. And there was always that one fact that could not be defeated – Education matters! So, in most instances, I flap my wings and fly, sometimes into the unknown. To grow one must take risks and when there is a good foundation it can cushion a fall.”

After completing her graduate studies, Rajcumar said she returned to Guyana and was placed in a strategic managerial /policy position in Government with a well experienced and a mature workforce, where she was amongst the youngest. “That was a defining moment in my public service career, where I served in a capacity to effect change in policy and governance and represented Guyana at many International Forums.” She said there was always the initial questioning or puzzled looks at official forums screaming too young. Then, she said, if needed, she whipped out her academic and work experience credentials and that saved the day.

Today, Rajcumar says she is entrusted with public trust and confidence in a constitutional post, having more recently, selected to sit on the local Public Procurement Commission.

Rajcumar told the Coven that she has come a long way on her journey and while there may be hardships ahead, the goal is always to focus on the endgame. She said she found education to be her key to success and believes it to be the same for any person determined enough, regardless of the circumstances.

 

 

 

 

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