Residents of Belladrum, West Coast Berbice will soon benefit from a skills development programme.
This was disclosed yesterday by President Irfaan Ali during a visit to the community, the Department of Public Information (DPI) reported.
“These are not necessarily persons who are from an academic stream or persons who would have to get certain qualifications to get into the technical institutes or the university…These are persons who may not have the qualifications but who we want to train technically to participate in the different sectors of the economy so we will be coming back to these communities as soon as that programme is launched,” the president stated.
This visit follows one made last year.
“What I’m here to do is to continue the conversation, to listen to you on how we can further enhance the development of the community…to listen to you as to what other ideas you may have, and how we can move those ideas forward.
“I’m here to talk to the people. I’m here to listen to the people…to listen to your concerns and to work with you on solving your problems… to work with you on developing your communities… to work with you on uplifting the lives of the people in this community,” Ali told the residents, according to DPI.
He reminded that at the last meeting, several goals were set, noting that concerns at that time revolved around drainage and irrigation, support to farmers, development of the community centre and community ground and creating opportunities at the village level for women.
“We have had development in all three areas of the community…to begin with, I want to say to the GOAL [Guyana Online Academy of Learning] scholars in this community, we had only 10 applications from Belladrum and all 10 of those persons who applied were granted GOAL scholarships from the Belladrum area”, he disclosed.
In addition, more than 10.5 miles of drainage and irrigation work was done in the area while farmers also benefitted from a shade house project, DPI reported.
Further, the President has assigned Public Service Minister Sonia Parag to the community to look into the interest of the residents there.
“She will be coming to you, door by door working with every member of this community and I want you to take her in as a member of your community because… that is the only way we can take our country forward”, the President told residents.
