President David Granger has charged Guyanese to become more resourceful and to make the necessary provisions for their future generations as their fore parents had done for them.
Speaking two Sundays ago at a Thanksgiving Service at the Bethel Congregational Church to commemorate the 178th anniversary of Beterverwagting Village, the president emphasised the need for people to uphold the four pillars on which villages were established by freed Africans, according to a media release from the Ministry of the Presidency. These are the home, the school, the church and the farm.
“They [freed Africans] were thrifty people, they were people with foresight, these were not people who went to school and had Degrees and PhDs. These villages were the cradle of the Guyanese society…knock down the churches, knock down the schools, knock down the homes and knock down the farms and the society will collapse,” the Head of State was quoted as saying in the press release.
On the subject of the rich legacy that freed Africans have bequeathed to their descendants, the congregation was urged. “Bring your children back into the church because this church has sustained the villages for over 100 years, make sure your children go to school…the farm has to be reactivated…and the home is not something optional or ornamental, the home is at the heart of every community,” Granger was quoted in the ministry release.
According to the media release, the Thanksgiving Service was organised by the 8th of May Movement in collaboration with the Bethel Congregational Church which was built by freed Africans. On May 8, 1840, a group of freed Africans, armed with a wheelbarrow of coins, totalling $52,000, purchased what is now called Beterverwagting Village.
