In the midst of all the woeful, I would even say daunting COVID-19 news landing on us, it is unfortunate that some of the more uplifting items pass virtually unnoticed, so purely from the good news angle, I’m citing three of the latter here.
The first comes out of the Cayman Islands, where I lived for 26 years with my second wife, Angela, and where I have three children and many wonderful memories. While there, doing some work with the Cayman National Cultural Foundation, I came to know one of the technicians at the CNCF’s Harquail Theatre, Isaac Rankine. This week, I received news of a project Isaac is involved with in the area of Grand Cayman known as East End, where he lives, and is Chairman of the East End Community Foundation (EECF) which involves the donation of food hampers to families through an organisation called the East End Food Pantry, in partnership with the Cayman Food Bank, and community volunteers in East End to organise the distribution of food, including hot meals to the elderly and most in-need in the community during the lockdown. Mr. Rankine said, “Thankfully the Cayman community continues to show that old Caymanian ‘caring fuh yuh neighbour” attitude.
Also this week, here in Guyana, there is a similar outreach going on, mounted by the Hindu Dharmic Sabha in an initiative which has made donations of food hampers to the needy in the communities of Kitty, Sophia, Cummings Lodge, Industry, Vigilance, Enterprise, Bla-den Hall, Nonpareil, Strathspey, Prospect, Coldingen, Herstelling, Providence, Covent Garden, Timehri, Soes-dyke, Enmore, Foulis, La Bonne Intention, Montrose, Better Hope and Good Hope. To date, Hindu Dharmic Sabha has distributed 1,400 of these COVID relief hampers and the project is ongoing. In Guyana as well, the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) has set up a COVID-19 Relief Fund, appealing to its members for financial donations to assist the poor and vulnerable in our society. Its letter to the members states, “Your Association is kindly seeking your donation to support persons affected by the COVID 19 and their families and those experiencing financial hardships during this affected period. To facilitate the donations, the Association has set up a GGDMA COVID 19 Relief Fund Chequing Account at Demerara Bank AC # 4023412. For other non-monetary donations, you can contact the GGDMA Secretariat on telephone #s 225-2217 or 225-1828. At the end of every week all donors will be updated on donations received and how these donations are being expended.”
Things are happening in Barbados, as well, where Vic Fernandes (not Guyanese, by the way) who is a prominent national radio station name in Bim, and now owns his own station there, Capital Media, has organised four assistance projects in that island, together worth $200,000.00 Barbados or $100,000.00 US. As Vic put it, “Capital Media is committed to putting back into the society wherever we can, it is in our DNA. Through the Ministry of Education, we are giving school children $100,000.00 in tablets to assist them with remote learning, another $50,000.00 for the Living Water Commu-nity, a Catholic charity that feeds the poor, $10,000.00 to the Catholic Church’s food programme for the poor, and $50,000.00 in food vouchers which we are executing ourselves in partnership with three supermarkets. The tablets project is being done in memory of our beloved and late Dr.Veoma Ali, one of the most brilliant and gifted broadcasters and human beings who died last year at the tender age of 37 years. Veoma was an attorney at law, had an MBA and acquired her PHD at age 33; she was loved by all of us and all of Barbados, she loved children, was passionate about education, and so that project is called the Veoma Ali Capital Kids Tech project.
As I’m completing writing this, I have news of another effort in Guyana where the donor wishes to remain unidentified but a group in Georgetown, committed to giving out provisions to needy families in various areas, distributed 2,500 pounds of provisions last week, 3,000 pounds this week, and 5,000 food hampers and masks. The items went to a range of homes in Sophia, Stanleytown, Better Hope, North Vryheid’s Lust, Bagotville, Enterprise, 64 Village, 47 Village, Uitvlugt, Cummings Lodge, Industry, Ruimzigt, and Canal Number 1
So in the midst of all the travail flowing from the Caribbean’s encounter with COVID19, some comfort can be taken from the significant charitable donations, given spontaneously, and in one case here anonymously, as well as in Cayman and Barbados. In those places – and one has to assume there are others unknown to us – it is reassuring to see in these difficult times that man-kind is offering mankind a significant helping hand.
