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PRIVATE BODY TARGETS HELP FOR GUYANA’S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR
Wednesday Oct. 27, 2021
MOVE AFOOT TO INVOLVE WOMEN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND MARGINALIZED MEN IN AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT
GTT, STEMGUYANA LAUNCH PINKTOBER CANCER AWARENESS CHATBOT-AIMS TO PROVIDE ACCURATE INFORMATION ON CANCER
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Wednesday Oct. 27, 2021
ELDERLY HOME VISITING COMMITTEE PROVIDING SPECIALISED CARE TO RESIDENTS
Today, the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) hosted a virtual exercise to launch its five-year Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) project. This project is set to benefit some 12,000 women, youth (both female and male), and marginalized men in five Caribbean countries, namely
Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Dominica, and St. Lucia. Persons who will benefit from the programme, which is being funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) to the tune of CAD $20 million, will be exposed to an agricultural project that will increase their impact on
agricultural markets in the Caribbean while developing more environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient domestic agricultural markets for economic growth. Delivering the feature address at Tuesday’s launch, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha, said that the need to increase opportunities
and capacity for women and youths in various agricultural market systems were goals that are linked to the ministry’s vision. The private sector also has a role to play as an enabler in the system. “The need to invest in agriculture, could not be clearer. As such, Guyana is pleased to be joining our sister CARICOM countries–
Jamaica, Suriname, Dominica, and St. Lucia– in this project. “The need to increase livelihoods, opportunities and capacity for women and youths to participate in inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient agricultural market systems are goals that are linked with the ministry’s vision of having a competitive, dynamic, and diversified socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable agri-food system. “The Government of Guyana aims to help farmers grow more, be better connected to markets, thereby earning more and living better lives.” Canada’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Mark Berman, said that there was an urgent need to build back better as Guyana’s
agriculture sector charts a path to recovery given the challenges brought on by the countrywide impacts of this year’s May – June flood. The ongoing global pandemic and issues of climate change have not helped the situation. “The launch of the SAC Project is particularly timely. As the sector charts a path to recovery and resilience, there is an urgent need to ‘build back better”. Building back better requires a transformative agenda that involves making food production more diverse or sustainable, more efficient, and more inclusive.” It is expected that by the end of the programme lifecycle, there will be increased equitable participation of women and youth in agricultural markets.
MOVE AFOOT TO INVOLVE WOMEN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND MARGINALIZED MEN IN AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT
Some 48,000 Women and Youths are set to be targeted as part Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean (SAC) Project from Guyana,
Jamaica, Suriname, St. Lucia, and Dominica. At the cost of C’dn$20 Million, the programme will run for five years. It will be funded by the
Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada funds. It will be facilitated by the World University Service Canada, an NGO which
focuses on improving the lives of youth globally through Economic Opportunity/ Education/ Empowerment for Youths, Women, and Refugees. Through the programme, some 48,000 Women and Youths, who are considered as being a part of the marginalized group, are set to benefit. Some 12,000 farmers will also be targeted with 75% of them being women and youths. At a launch of the programme Tuesday morning, it was explained that the SAC project focuses on improving economic benefit for agriculture market actors particularly for women, youth, and marginalized male producers. P r o m o t i n g environmental sustainability and
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facilitating climate resilience and adoption of climate-smart adoption practices. Canada’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Mark Berman, welcomed the initiative. He said that it stands as part of his Government’s move to end hunger. The Government is playing its role in ensuring it supports the Sustainable Development Goals, he added. “The cornerstone of Canada’s engagement and the Caribbean is to achieve the sustainable development goal. This sustainable development goal is to end hunger, archive food security, promote nutrition and support sustainable agriculture, recognizing several interlinkages including supporting
sustainable agriculture, empowering small farmers, promoting gender equality, ending rural poverty, ensuring a healthy lifestyle, and tacking climate change. “Implementing these agenda requires focusing on priorities such as vulnerability to natural disaster, last of access to long term finance and the need to diversify economies”
Wednesday Oct. 27, 2021
GTT, STEMGUYANA LAUNCH PINKTOBER CANCER AWARENESS CHATBOT-AIMS TO PROVIDE ACCURATE INFORMATION ON CANCER GTT has collaborated with STEMGuyana to launch its Pinktober Breast Cancer awareness chatbot that will allow locals to have access to concise and comprehensible information on different types of cancer. A chatbot is a computer programme designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet. GTT’s Pinktober Coordinator, Diana Gittens, explained that the company has contributed some $300,000 to create the Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot. “In addition to contributing funds towards testing and treatment for breast cancer patients, GTT is happy to sponsor a permanent and
innovative solution for our community members. “Early detection saves lives and the service the breast cancer chatbot will provide will help our citizens to get the
information they need, to quickly access medical services that can, in turn, save their lives,” she said. STEMGuyana Director, Karen Abrams, said her team is elated to join GTT
at the hip in innovating for all of Guyana. “What is truly amazing is that the AI engine upon which the chatbot is built allows it to learn the more as it interacts with users,
so over time, the system will become even more useful to Guyanese as it learns the local vernacular and is able to comprehend and dispense useful, even critical information to Guyanese from all walks of life,” she said. Sharing similar sentiments on the AI chatbot creation, STEMGuyana Team Manager, Arianna Mahase said, “We wanted to go beyond Pink and innovate a technology solution for Pinktober that would help women with early detection, testing resources, and general information they would need to improve their chances of survival of breast cancer.” “The chatbot we have built will provide responses
that are tailored to be supportive, comforting, comprehensible, and concise. The responses will also encourage users to get screened not only during breast cancer awareness month, but whenever persons utilise it,” she added. The breast cancer chatbot will be hosted on STEMGuyana’s website and can be accessed via www.stemguyana. c o m / b r e a s t c a n c e r. It will target Guyanese and Caribbean women. Reports have revealed that breast cancer is the main cause of cancer deaths among women in Guyana and the Caribbean. Photo as Karen Abrams; Diana Gittens
Suriname’s human rights record to be examined by Universal Periodic Review
Suriname’s human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic
Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Monday, 1 November 2021 in a meeting that will be webcast live.
Suriname is one of the 14 States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking
place from November 1 to November 12. Suriname’s first and second UPR reviews took place in May 2011 and May 2016. The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report – information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other
stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations, and civil society groups. The UPR is a unique process that involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN member States have been reviewed twice within the first and second UPR cycles. During the third UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have
taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow-up on, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country. The delegation of Suriname will be led by H.E. Kenneth Amoksi, Minister of Justice and Police. The three-country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of Suriname are: Somalia, the Republic of Korea and the Bahamas.
According to the police Lowenfield on October 24, last, at Lot 310 No.51 Village Corentyne Berbice, set fire to the dwelling home. Lowenfield admitted to the crime and was slapped with a four-year jail sentence on his first
appearance in court. Reports are that Lowenfield, according to his sister, Omataya Lowenfield, had been released from jail some two years ago. Upon his release, she maintained that on several occasions he would threaten to burn the house down. Ms. Omataya Lowenfield said that his threats would usually occur when he became upset and under the influence of alcohol.
She said that on the day in question, she was awakened by the smell of smoke. It was approximately 02:30hrs. She quickly collected her children aged seven, eight, and 11 and moved them to safety. The woman added that she made her way out to safety, and could not go back to save anything as the fire quickly spread through to the entire house. She further disclosed
that her other brother said Mr. Lowenfield set the fire by lighting the mattress in his room and spraying it with gasoline. Ms. Lowenfield said that this has left her devastated and homeless. “With my kids and husband, I do not know where to start from now. She said she and her husband worked hard to enjoy a comfortable life and are now left with nothing. This, she said, is extremely difficult.
Ex-con torches sister’s dwelling, jailed for four years
A former convict, who threatened to burn down a Berbice house, later did so, leaving his sister, her children, and other relatives homeless. He will now spend his next four years behind bars after admitting to his
actions before a court. The arsonist, 47-yearold Andrew Lowenfield, appeared before Magistrate Alex Moore at the Springlands Magistrate’s Court yesterday when the sentence was handed down.
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SOME FACTS CANNOT BE DISPUTED
Adam’s
note book
Many years ago I was a teacher. In fact, that was my first job. It started way back in 1966. I entered the Government Teachers Training College in 1967 majoring in Chemistry and Physics. From time to time I was required to teach Mathematics when the teachers were not there. It was an exciting period in my life. It took at least three years to prepare children for the external examinations. I taught at the Bartica Government Secondary School, the only Grade B Secondary School to prepare and secure passes in Physics and Chemistry at the GCE O’ Levels to this day. Grade B Schools were expected to prepare children for Integrated Sciences. In those days, children
wrote the General Certificate Examinations commonly referred to as GCE. This year there were praises for those children who did remarkably well at the Caribbean Secondary Examinations and CAPE. These examinations have replaced the GCE O’ Levels and A’ Levels. I saw some Facebook posts, one by Education Minister Priya Manickchand. I merely posted whether credit should not go to the Coalition. I got no answer. When the Coalition came to office in 2015 there was a focus on the education system. I am not going to go into the figures that highlighted how poorly Guyana was performing when compared to the other Caribbean territories.
This year Guyana was the best-performing country. The results of these recent examinations reflected the four years of preparation under a modified and upgraded school system. However, there was no mention of this. Instead, there was talk about the Coalition doing nothing during its term in office. Then I saw the performance by the children at the Grade Six Assessment Examinations. Way back in the 1990s when Wilfred Success was a teacher at West Ruimveldt Primary School he secured some astounding results. That school secured six children in the top ten. The noise was deafening. Most of the people in the country claimed that Wilfred Success cheated; that
he had procured the examination papers in advance and had drilled the children. The reality is that he continued to produce top-performing children to the point that parents now seek him out. He has opened his private school. This year, again he got astonishing results. Only this time nobody claimed that he had cheated. He got four in the top ten and would be sending nearly two dozen children to Queen’s College. Indeed, there is the maxim that if the children have not learned, the teachers have not taught. Wilfred Success is a teacher and he has employed other teachers. The public schools did the best they could, bearing in mind that during this pandemic many parents, ordinary people, could not afford computers, did not have access to the internet and therefore could not get their children to attend online classes. There were 13,000 who wrote the exams. No more than 1,300 would go on to good secondary schools. Again, we should understand that many of the parents are not academically inclined so they did not give their children the needed attention and supervision. But many of these children did well under the circumstances. They
deserve congratulations. And there were some other things that caused raised eyebrows. Former Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe was out of the country when SOCU laid charges for some incidents dating back to 2019. Heaven knows why those charges have surfaced only now. However, while Slowe was doing his job with the West Indies Cricket Board the charges were laid but not read to him. By way of a summons sent to Attorney at Law Nigel Hughes last week, he was informed that he needed to attend court. And that he did. When he was in the court four SOCU ranks decided that they should arrest him. If a man is in court to answer charges that have to be read to him and there was no arrest warrant, on what ground can he be arrested? The truth is that the authorities wanted to have him appear in court with handcuffs and shackles for no other reason than to embarrass him. He knows his rights and he resisted, causing the ranks to assault him. There have been criticisms of this episode from lawyers and former magistrates. There has been total silence from the Attorney General. This episode lends support to the widely held belief that the government is using the
police to harass and to embarrass those who dare to comment on its wrongdoings. It suspended the Police Service Commission as a means of preparing its own list of police promotions. Then the Attorney General files to the court for the move by the Police Service Commission to challenge the government’s refusal to recognize the PSC list of promotions, be struck out because the commission has been suspended by the government. He argues that there is no commission to represent the action. We’ll see where that argument goes. The other thing that bothered many people was the fact that a man, Colin Bailey, spent almost six years in jail on a murder charge when the police had no evidence to hold him. He was freed by the judge who questioned the fact that the matter reached the high court although there was no evidence against Colin Bailey. And while in jail, Bailey suffered a heart attack and contracted COVID. I have approached the DPP to explain how such a thing could happen. There were too many checks and balances. I am awaiting her response.
Speeding minibus kills pedal cyclist The family of a 47-year-old cyclist is now mourning the loss of their loved one after he was struck down by a minibus on his way home on Strangroen Public Road, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. The dead man has been identified as a pedal cyclist, Seebaran Dhankumar, a resident of North Public info@guyanapostonline.com
Road, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. According to reports coming from the police, the incident occurred just around 18:00 hours on Tuesday. Dhankumar met his demised after minibus BTT 3832 driven by Surujpaul Bissoon, 61, of Novar, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara was
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proceeding east along the said road, allegedly at a fast rate of speed. Bissoon claimed that at the time he saw the pedal cyclist, cycling in front of him on the northern side of the road when the cyclist suddenly changed direction and ended up in his path. He added that he then applied brakes to avoid a
collision, but despite his efforts, he collided with the pedal cyclist. The 47-year-old cyclist was then picked up and taken to the Mahaicony Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival by a doctor. The driver remains in police custody.
Faulty electric point causes fire scare at NIS head office
Days after the Brickdam Police Station went up in flames, National Insurance Scheme (NIS) went on high fire alert and called in the Guyana Fire Service after an overloaded loaded switch started to smoke on Monday.
operations started to change the damaged points. Later when everything was under control, some staff operating in the affected area were told to take the rest of the day off, as power was expected to
The NIS was said to be the third fire emergency call for the day. There was another at the Guyana Post Office. Speaking to the media after the incident, the Divisional Commander of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), Hemchandra Persaud, said that with such high fire risk the GFS remains on high alert also. “We have seen an increase in calls especially from (Monday). We had three calls. We would have responded to the GPO, NIS, and a bridge in Campbellville where there was a rubbish fire lit by someone.
that GFS due to the high risk has also shifted its approach due to high-level risk. “We are going to raise the level of preparedness; we are at the drawing board right now with senior officers knowing that we had a serious fire at the Brickdam Police Station. Of course, in life, we have to go through the vicissitude of life and there are always changes that we have to adapt to. “So, we are working as it is right now to look at our resource and to see what necessary we need, especially in this point in time, when we
According to the Guyana Fire Service, just before midday, in the Office of the General Manager, Holly Greaves, an electrical point started to smoke. The fire service responded with three fire trucks, an ambulance, and the ranks from Guyana Police Force. On arrival on the scene, firefighters explained that a point in the room was indeed smoking. With the aid of the policemen and women, the building was cleared of staff and others. With smoke still emanating from the point, prompted the shutting off the power to the building, they quickly tackled the affected area and the situation was quickly brought under control. The police also indicated that later the NIS Electrical Engineer quickly took over and
out for some time. The police advised the NIS to check the entire power supply chain to ensure that the problem does not occur again. The police also with safety in mind, to avoid a recurrence of the Brickdam Police Station fire a fire tender was left on standby.
“That fire was extinguished by the Campbellville units at GPO because it’s a high-rise building, it’s a Government building with lots of occupants. We would have sent a full response so that nothing got out of control,” Mr. Persaud explained. Mr. Persaud added
have a very hot weather and of course what is unfolding currently we have to first start thinking ahead and anticipate any eventuality.” This comes as the President, Mohammed Irfaan Ali blasted the GFS on its preparedness for the Brickdam Police Station fire.
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Guyana to release CSEC, CAPE and NGSA results by Oct. 15.
The Ministry of Education announced on Saturday, that the Caribbean Examination Council has chosen Guyana as the host country to ‘release’ this year’s CAPE and CSEC results on October 14, 2021. In addition, NGSA is expected to be released on October 15; with raw exam scores coming from Barbados. The Caribbean Examination Council’s (CXC) Caribbean Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) were written during June -July this year. The examinations were written at a later date this year due to the effects, consequences, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Caribbean and the world. The Ministry of Education announced on Saturday, that the Caribbean Examination Council has chosen Guyana as the host country to ‘release’ this year’s CAPE and CSEC results on October 14, 2021. These results will be available to candidates on the CXC’s online portal from October 15, 2021. The National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) was equally affected by the pandemic and was written on August 4-5 of this year. Since 2016, CXC was contracted by the Government of Guyana to develop, administer and mark this examination/assessment annually. This year to further
advance the transparency and integrity of the examination/assessment, CXC’s responsibilities were extended and increased to include verification of raw scores. Additionally, to conduct and manage all reviews or appeals after the results are published and further to present the data and analysis of each year’s assessment. The Ministry of Education has been informed by CXC that the raw scores will be ready and sent from Barbados to Guyana by Tuesday, September 28, 2021, after which the National Data Management Authority (NDMA) will standardize the scores and offer placements according to the scores, and print results’ slips. In addition, from this year: 1. NGSA candidates will NOT be penalized with their raw scores because they were older than 12 years 6 months at the end of March of the year, the examination was written. 2. The standardized scores per subject will be rounded up to the nearest whole number and the TOTAL score will be given as a decimal number thereby offering candidates more fairness. The Education Ministry also encourages this year’s NGSA, CSEC and CAPE candidates to return all textbooks and resource materials to their respective schools. Failure to do so may result in being unable to access results
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