Participants in recent meetings organised by the ‘Facing the Future’ initiative say that a new type of politics is needed to overcome obstacles to Guyana’s development.
According to a press release from Mike McCormack, in his capacity as Convenor of the grouping, three recent meetings, for youth, women and civil society organizations, “concurred by a wide margin that the obstacles to Guyana realizing its potential are predominantly political: the electoral system, unequal access to justice, violations of human rights and unequal treatment of women.” The release noted that representatives from over 50 organizations braved torrential downpours and aired many proposals around the theme but the fundamental requirement could be summarized in the one phrase: “a new type of politics.”
The initiative is sponsoring a year-long discourse to engage political parties and citizens on issues preventing citizens from realizing their potential in Guyana.
The meetings examined the constitution, which has encouraged widespread inequality to prevail in the administration of justice, human rights violations and a winner-take-all electoral system which has enriched winners and excluded losers for over fifty years, the release stated.
The constitution, the courts and the electoral system were identified in all three of the meetings, it added.
The meetings will inform the launch of the next phase of the initiative, in which a team of eminent persons with considerable experience in ethnically dysfunctional societies will engage with a wide cross-section of Guyanese to further explore the theme on an inclusive future, the release stated. These exchanges will take place during the week of March 21 to March 26.
A total of 59 organizations and groups drawn from Georgetown, the East Bank and West Coast Demerara, Essequibo and the Pomeroon, New Amsterdam, and Linden participated in the three meetings.
The Rights Of Children (ROC) group hosted an Open Space Meeting on the future of Guyana on February 19, 2011, which targeted young people between the ages of 16 and 23 years. Of the 112 young people who indicated they would be attending, forty-nine participants from nineteen organizations eventually braved the heavy rains to make it to the Methodist Outreach Centre.
The majority of the participants were drawn from university and secondary school groups, religious youth groups, humanitarian and sports clubs. The theme of the meeting—“Guyana’s Future: A We Thing Not A Me Thing”—captured the idea that the future of Guyana must be structured in a way that includes everyone. Priority votes on conclusion saw ‘human rights violations’ attracting the most votes, the release stated.
Meanwhile, on March 8, International Women’s Day, 28 women from Essequibo, George-town, East Coast and East Bank Demerara, New Amsterdam and Linden represented 23 organizations drawn from women, youth, religious, disabilities, environmental and HIV sectors. The group reviewed factors which are holding back women in Guyana from realizing their potential.
According to the release, “economic inequality and constitutional reform, implementing laws and policies, and criminal justice were targeted for special attention. Voting on priorities at the end saw economic inequality suffered by women attracting the most votes.”
Last Saturday, at Marian Academy Assembly Hall 54 participants from 28 civil society organizations and groups, including culture, indigenous, gender, academia and the business sectors adopted the open space method to generate an agenda of some 22 issues, which were then discussed in three-round simultaneous discussion groups over a three-hour period.
At the end of the exercise, all participants voted on what they considered to be the priority topics for them. The release noted that a ‘new political system’ attracted 75 votes when merged with constitutional and electoral reform, substantially more than the second placed issue of ‘poverty.’
The release listed the sponsoring organizations as the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), Church Women United (CWU), Common Ground, Community-Based Rehabi-litation–EBD, Georgetown Cham-ber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI),the Guyana Council of Churches (GCC), the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT), the Guyana Society for the Blind, the Guyana Workers Union (GWU), the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Rights Of Children (ROC), Red Thread, and the Vilvoorden Women’s Organization.
