Cuso Guyana has welcomed 12 new volunteers with a broad range of skills and experience who will be serving at the local programme office and at various partner organisations in several priority areas.
All but one of the volunteers is from Canada, with the exception being from Grenada. The Grenadian volunteer is the first from the Caribbean as Cuso has started to support regional volunteering, the group said in a press statement. The NGO also noted that there is a Guyanese-born volunteer among the batch who is the sixth such volunteer currently here.
“The volunteer journey started long before we got here today – from the development of the placement that contributes to the shared objective of Cuso and the partner, to the advertising for the placements and selection of volunteers…since volunteers are matched specifically to placements based on their skills….Partners select volunteers based on their skills,” the group said.
The new volunteers are Cheryl Herbert, Gender Specialist, who will serving at the Caricom Secretariat; Samantha Hunter, Program Advisor – Employment, who will be attached to the Open Doors Centre; Rustum Tharani, Strategic Planner – Vocational Training Centre, who will be attached to the Culture Ministry; Ann Choy, Programme Advisor – Juvenile Correctional Facility who will be attached to the New Opportunity Corps; Heather Hale, a Youth Leadership and Governance Advisor who will be serving at the Commonwealth Youth Corps; Priscilla Cote, a Youth Employment Programme Advisor who will be serving at Volunteer Youth Corps; Sylvie Cote, a Fundraiser/ Resource Mobilisation Advisor who will be serving at Women Across Differences and Larissa Daniel, Researcher – Programme Development (Baseline Survey); Ravi Mohabir, a Caribbean Information Management Specialist; Dominique McClean, Value Chain Advisor; Janice Link, a Programme Advisor-Organisation Development and Cassey Blake, a Financial Assessor who will all be based at Cuso Guyana.
This new batch of volunteers brings the total number of Cuso volunteers serving in Guyana to 26.