Category: Features

“Where there is no education we live in a house without a light: we are in darkness,” says Pandit Suresh Sugrim, chief executive officer of the New Jersey Arya Samaj Mandir Inc. Humanitarian Mission and founder of the New Jersey Aryan Samaj Mandir Inc., who, on August 9, 2015, officially opened a $38M (US$400,000) skills training centre and counselling facility in Guyana. The Seva Sadna Home of Service at Area Q, Ankerville, Port Mourant, Corentyne in Berbice was made possible by the generous contributions of donors who saw the need…

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A preliminary chronicle of Georgetown’s Umana Yanas By Lennox J Hernandez The Umana Yana, once an iconic and popular structure in Kingston, Georgetown, its Wai Wai name translated into English as “meeting place of the people”, was gutted by fire on Sept. 9, 2014. This article is a preliminary chronicle of the factual history of the Umana Yana, and at this stage there is still much to learn of Guyana’s most famous indigenous attraction. According to William McDowell, who has published possibly the most detailed story of the original Umana…

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The Education and Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministries have collaborated to pay homage to late Father John Peter Bennett, who produced the Arawak-English dictionary, at the National Art Gallery, Castellani House, as the celebration of Amerindian Heritage Month. The tribute took the form of an exhibition of artwork by indigenous artists called the “Moving Circle”. In his remarks at the launch on Thursday, Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Minister Sydney Allicock said that Guyana’s indigenous people have made major contributions to the country’s development. He added that the talents that the country’s youngsters…

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Elsa Goveia’s 1956 publication, “A Study on the Historiography of the British West Indies to the End of the Nineteenth Century” is considered the “first substantial work” to study the writing of Caribbean history. She is celebrated as a pioneering Caribbean history research and teaching individual, and acclaimed for her “sensitivity to the racism of the time”: writing to provide a balanced appraisal of historical studies once usually conducted by whites only. Elsa Vesta Goveia was born April 12, 1925 in the former British Guiana, one of two daughters. Mixed…

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By Lennox J Hernandez It is generally accepted that the mainland of South America has been occupied by humans since 30,000 BCE, and that northern South America, including Guyana, has been occupied by indigenous peoples for more than 6,000 years. In what is called pre-Columbian times (before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans), the Arawak people, for example, inhabited the river basins of the Orinoco River and the northern Amazon, living in “thatched huts, made of bent branches, covered in leafy boughs.” Over thousands of years, indigenous buildings…

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Some ten years ago, deaf persons in Guyana mainly faced a life in isolation, while persons without the disability remained essentially uniformed and unaware of their difficulties. Today, from a modest office on Norton Street, Wortmanville in Georgetown, chairman for the Guyana Council of Organizations for Persons with Disabilities and director of the Support Group for Deaf Persons, Leon Walcott, has seen first-hand the progress over the years, as well as the remaining – and new – constraints regarding deaf awareness in Guyana. Speaking with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine, Walcott…

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According to one source, the Guiana Match Factory was founded in Georgetown, British Guiana in 1910. In the book “Igniting the Caribbean’s Past: Fire in British West Indian History” by Bonham C. Richardson, it is stated that the match factory opened in British Guiana in 1883. Juanita De Barros, in her book “Order and Place in a Colonial City: Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924” states that there were two match factories near Georgetown in the late 19th – early 20th century. In a 1903 Hansard…

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‘Traditional Games’ looking to become an indigenous centrepiece On Saturday, Aug. 16, 2015 the second CARICOM inter-tribal games ended at the Pakuri Lokono-Arawak Territory(St Cuthberts’ Mission) in Guyana. In terms of news reports, the event was quietly held; for the tribes from Guyana and Dominica who attended, it was a small but successful endeavour, and the notion revealed a potential for becoming a truly international experience. Events for the first CARICOM inter-tribal games were held in 2012 when founder of the event, Barbadian Lokono-Arawak Damon Corrie, who hails his ancestry…

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By Lennox J Hernandez Sand Creek is an indigenous community (population of 712 in 2009) located in the south of Region 9, about 96 km (60 miles) roughly south-east of Lethem, with the Kanuku Mountains to the north and east, and Sand Creek (after which the village is probably named) to the west, snaking around on the south of the village. The Rupununi River, into which Sand Creek flows, is further west of the creek. Sand Creek is translated as Katiwau in Wapishana, the language of the people of the…

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By Methu and Ruben The selection of a civic Prime Ministerial candidate for the upcoming general elections in Guyana has placed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in a good position in the campaign and is a fitting tribute to Dr. Jagan, its founder leader. Carefully chosen candidates are vote-getters. It broadens the appeal and furbishes the image of the Party. Dr. Jagan and his party, the PPP, were unbeatable at the polls, yet he embraced the concept of a civic component on the Party’s candidates’ list for election, in order…

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