After a successful protest resulted in overdue repair works on the Kuru Kuru access road, residents of the Soesdyke-Linden Highway community have renewed their calls for their village and the surrounding ones to have their own school facilities.
More than two weeks ago, dozens of residents from the small community came out in their numbers to protest the state of their access road.
While the road’s condition had been slowly deteriorating for more than two decades, several parents had told this publication and they were forced to take matters into their own hands after a bus which was transporting school children, teachers and some parents to the school, currently being housed in the National Service Youth Corps’ compound, almost toppled over. The institution is located more than 3 kilometers from the village.
The residents kept up their actions for a week and eventually aid was sent to them by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, which has started rehabilitative works.
“They would’ve started work on the road and they have gone a reasonable way. It’s much safer now and is just that there are some areas that lead from where the part of the hill was bad they have to do more. Some areas they have to finish coming back into the school compound but the part that was the worst that would’ve been sorted,” resident Samuel Wilson told Stabroek News yesterday.
Wilson explained that the residents and parents are currently “comfortable” with the work that has been done so far and they have been “observing to make sure nothing went wrong and they do what they had to do.”
Even though the repair works on the road will now make it possible for the large buses to traverse the road much more safely, Wilson said that they predict the road will return to its deplorable condition “sooner than later” and to avoid the situation escalating again the government should look into building schools outside of the National Service’s compounds for their children and children from the surrounding villages to use.
“We still believe it is necessary for a school to be built outside. History would’ve shown that the school was only placed there temporarily because the area would’ve been identified for the school in Long Creek years ago and they were unable to complete the structure and would’ve never made any progress. That is why we are saying, be that there is an area in the community that was identified, we would be glad if it can come out because it would be easier for the children to access. It’s also within the community where everyone can keep an eye on them rather than having them go all the way up there,” Wilson explained.
He noted that currently some 800 to 900 children attend school at the end of the access road and some even travel all the way from Soesdyke and further along the highway.
“Do the lil repair works on the road and through the community and build the school. It makes sense and it’s going to cost much less. Plus you have children who does come ’til from Soesdyke and Loo Creek. It’ll be more convenient to them,” another resident stated.
The man opined that instead of having to do more extensive works on the road, which will be costly, the government should consider building the schools nearer to the community.
“Is just lil patchwork and what’s not they doing there on the road. Don’t get me wrong, we grateful. We happy and we want to thank the government for listening to we and for caring about the safety of our children but if they don’t maintain the road regularly it is going to end up the way how it was and we back to square one,” he explained.
