The Guyana Empowered Peoples Action Network (GEPAN) under its Support Education Campaign (SEC), donated stationery gift bags to 26 Primary School children of Tenez Fairm in Canal Polder #1, West Bank Demerara, Region 3, last Sunday.
GEPAN’s Executive Member Rishma Ajodha, delivered the packages to the 26 children on behalf of the organisation. She visited each home and shared in the children’s back-to-school excitement. Most beneficiaries were between 5 – 12 years old.
Rishma Ajodha delivered packages to 26 Primary School children
Tenez Fairm is a small community where the majority of inhabitants migrated to the area from Mahaica-Berbice (Region 5) and East Berbice-Corentyne (Region 6), as well as other parts of the country, in search of better employment opportunities and facilities.
The community depends primarily on the agriculture sector, and most workers are labourers, and grass and cane cutters. Residents of the West Bank Demerara, including in Canal Polder #1, depend heavily on the Wales Sugar Estate. However, following recent reforms in the sugar cane industry, accessibility to their livelihoods is under threat of being reduced. The people of Tenez Fairm are not exempt from this situation.
View of Tenez Fairm
Most parents in Tenez Fairm possess limited education (generally up to Primary School), but today they make strenuous efforts to send their children to school.
School drop-out continues to play a negative role in the human development of the community, leading young people to engage in illegal activities.
SEC is an initiative which was recently launched by GEPAN, to encourage school turn-out for children coming from modest homes in impoverished rural communities. The programme falls within GEPAN’s scope of empowering inhabitants of rural coastal communities in Guyana, particularly women and single mothers who bear solely the responsibility of educating their children.
This is the 3rd outreach conducted under SEC and was made possible through charitable contributions of local businesses.
