Activities available to Youth
At this stage of operation,
there are some activities that youth can
participate in. These are:
Indicator Packs Project
This project that involves
students of all levels, members of youth
clubs/organisations and NGO’s in the
production of booklets that highlight the
indicators of development. It is hoped that
involvement in this project will increase
persons’ awareness of the Guyanese
environment and lead to initiatives that deal
directly with the arising issues. Contributions
can be made to this process by:
- Sharing ideas, information
and facts on the issues being dealt with
- Submitting drawings, poems
and other illustration
- Assisting with the editing
- Assisting with the sorting
and compilation of data
- Assisting with the design
of the Packs; and/or
- Just visiting the Centre
to critically analyse the work done.
Competitions
This includes drawing, poster,
poem and other literary competitions that will be
in keeping with holidays and focus of the Centre
at the time. The aim of the competition is to
allow children to express themselves freely and
creatively. The winning submissions will then be
used in a number of areas such as, in the
Indicator Packs, in other forms of literature
produced by the Centre, on the web page and even
in displays at the Centre. This, for us, is very
important since it is felt that persons feel like
they are being paid attention when they can
actually see the fruits of their labour
being employed. This activity will target persons
between the ages of 10 and 18 years old and is
expected to be an ongoing activity commencing
within three (3) months of the Centre’s
opening.
A Young People’s Guide to
the Environment of Guyana
One of the ideas that we have
been developing is off a website -generating
programme with Secondary School students. The
first part of this initiative would be to create
a "Young People’s Guide to the
Environment of Guyana". What we aim to do is
to establish teams of students in selected
Secondary schools from Regions who would become
the driving force behind the project.
Representatives from these schools would form a
co-ordinating committee overseeing the whole
project and would be responsible for designing,
implementing and reporting on the project. First
of all a plan for the website would be created
and the priority environmental issues would be
established. Each issue would be given to the
participating schools for them to be responsible
for researching and generating material for the
website. Each school would be required to produce
texts, artwork and other materials for their
section of the website. These materials would be
submitted to an editorial team made up from the
participating schools, who would draw the
material together and produce a first draft of
the website for the participating schools to
review. GuyberNet would arrange for the editorial
team to be trained in editing text, through the
assistance of an established journalist (possibly
in association with an established newspaper) as
well as how to build websites through the
assistance of the experienced staff of GuyberNet.
Once schools have made their comments on the
first draft of the website, a second editorial
meeting will take place where a finalised version
of the website will be prepared. We hope that the
whole process will engender a feeling of
ownership for all those people who are
participating in the project and thus inject a
renewed interest in promoting environmental
issues in Guyana.
Reading for the 21st
Century
This is a programme that allows
us to teach the illiterate to read. Concentration
will be on the street children. Why do we want to
do this project? In a constantly advancing
technological world, survival demands that we are
literate to some extent. Since most of the Street
Children have either not seen the inside of a
school or had the opportunity for education
snatched from them, they are at a profound
disadvantage. Any bit of help possible should be
given to them. The programme will not however be
restricted to the Street Children but to anyone
else who is interested. It is just that the
former is our primary focus. Persons will be
needed to assist in teaching the children.
Farming into the Future
Farming is one of the most
life-sustaining practices one can get involved
in. More often than not, youths have no interest
in career in Farming due to the association of
the same with poverty and the "hard
life." We feel it would do us well to assist
in doing away with this misconception and present
the practice as a sustainable business venture.
Apart from the preparing and cultivation of plant
beds in the school compound, there will be
sustainable business training held at the Centre.
An Agriculture Group will be established in each
school to deal with the day to day administration
of the project. The marketing of the produce of
the students can be seen as a fund raising
venture for the schools. The students themselves
will come away with the knowledge and the skills
to make farming lucrative business activity. Some
schools like North Georgetown are already
involved in this activity either as part of the
curriculum or as an extra curriculum activity.
The problem seems to be lack of resources
stemming from lack of funding and lack of
appropriate facilities.
"Binning" Schools
This is a relatively less
complicated project that involves placing bins in
the schools. There seems to be a lack of this
disposal unit in many of the non-top schools and
this result in unsanitary conditions of. Even in
the top schools, a large unit is lacking i.e. one
where larger bits of disposables (parts of
furniture, boxes, etc) can be burnt or recycled.
With this in mind lectures on the recycling and
efficient waste disposal will accompany the
"Binning" exercise. This knowledge the
participants can use in other aspects of life: at
home and at work. Acquiring funding for such
projects can contribute to more sanitary
conditions and a more picturesque appearance of
our schools. To benefit directly from this
project are the students of the targeted schools,
teachers and all that dwell in that environment.
Added to this a sanitary environment is always a
plus when potential students and teachers and
even donors are evaluating one’s school.
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