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NEWS
week ending February 16, 2014 | guyanatimeSinternational.com
Berbician cops Commonwealth Youth Worker Award B erbician and community worker Alex Foster has received his seventh international award when he copped the 2013 Commonwealth Youth Worker Award for the Caribbean region, joining other winners from Africa, Asia, the Pacific Region and the United Kingdom. Foster recently received the award in London. It was his third Commonwealth Youth Service Award, having previously won the award in 1993 and 1995. In addition to those awards, Foster also received an award from the Commonwealth for youth service in 1991, and in 1999 was selected from thousands of applicants the world over as the 60th most influential young social entrepreneur in the world. In 2006, Foster headed the St Francis Community Developers, which was named the most successful, sustainable and influential group in the Commonwealth. However, before these international awards, Foster was also recognised both in Guyana and the Caribbean. In 1989, he was the Caribbean
Alex Foster (extreme left) with other Commonwealth awardees in London
and Commonwealth Youth of the Year. The year before, the community worker received his first and only national award in Guyana, the Youth of the Year award. He said that it is quite unfortunate that most young males are blamed for not acting in a manner that is condu-
cive for their personal development and the development of their communities.
Lack of male role models
“Their role models from a very young age are females. If we look at the nursery schools, the teachers are females; in the primary schools, there are few male teachers; and in the secondary
schools, the male teachers are getting even fewer. In society, the male species seems to be endangered species as it relates to excellence. If we take a simple survey at the University of Guyana and all the higher learning institutions, the largest percentages of persons attending those institutions are fe-
males.” Young males, he added, hardly have role models. “It is therefore a privilege to ask males to join community development.” He said community development is no longer charitable work, but a force to be reckoned with. “It is a most prestigious career one can
choose.” According to him, Oprah Winfrey, the late Nelson Mandela and President Bill Clinton, all did community development work before moving on to another career. He said persons involved in community development have to love what they do. “You have to work 24 hours a day. Even in your sleep, you have to be thinking about it. If you are going to do this work, your vision must be very clear,” Foster said. Speaking of his accomplishments, the community worker noted that it is not the number of buildings built or amount of money acquired internationally for development of Berbice, but the differences he was able to make in people’s lives. He noted when he started community development, the biggest projects were the painting of road crossings, feeding groups and organising training workshops. “Today, in community development, when you are executing a project, not only is it impacting on the persons who are directly evolved in it but the entire community.”