Deodat Persaud, an East Canje, Berbice, pandit has become the first Guyanese to be selected for the United States Community Solutions Program, which will commence in August.
Persaud will participate in an intensive four-month leadership development program in the United States, after which he will return to his homeland, where he will use the skills learned to implement a community action project.
The United States Embassy in Guyana earlier this month announced the news, while noting that the program is a “professional leadership development program for the best and brightest community leaders worldwide.”
The Sunday Stabroek was informed that Persaud is the first ever Guyanese to be selected for the annual fellowship, for which organizers received 8,400 applications from 97 countries this year.
Persaud, 35, an Assistant Registration Officer for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and Director of the Golden Om Dharmic Youth Organization, of Canefield Settlement, East Canje, Berbice, explained in an interview that he will be leaving on Monday for his host state, which is Georgia. There, he will be matched with the Georgia Center for Civic Engagement, which promotes youth programs and opportunities that promote self-esteem, leadership skills, and moral and civic responsibility. “It’s a one-year fellowship program in all so when I come back to Guyana I need to implement a project.”
According to Persaud, his area of focus will be transparency and accountability, “I have chosen this here because of my passion for youths and my work exposure with GECOM… In this experience here, I am going to be able to see how their public education is being done there, especially how to get people civically involved in projects.”
With this background, Persaud is hopeful that when he returns he is hoping to “implement a civic education project from an NGO standpoint.” He stated, that Guyanese generally believe that it is only GECOM that is responsible for voters’ education projects “but with my NGO I want to go across the country where I want to target 1,000 young persons here. I will teach them why it is important to become leaders in their community, why it’s important that you should vote, the voting process, qualities of a good leader, etc.”
According to Persaud, the Georgia Center for Civic Engagement will be having mock elections for children and youths to give them an idea of the voting process, etc. They will also be having Model UN debates “so all of this helps to build their capacity and these are some of the things I want to bring back to Guyana so we can create a generation of young people who are civically informed and willing to engage and willing to contribute to make Guyana a better society.”
Additionally, Persaud plans on his return to engage GECOM to “go in this direction. So one of my projects will be to target the commission to present a report, perhaps to seek buy-in from them and at the same time to seek buy-in from other civic organizations.”
He stressed, that the Golden Om Dharmic Organization will also be looking to get involved in more civic engagements when he returns.
