School aged children representing 11 secondary schools from each district who were successful
in the Friendship Youth Leadership Competition, on Friday, received $200,000.00 (US
$1000.00) and other awards from the Education Ministry and the embassy of the People’s
Republic of China.
The awards were distributed to the students at an inaugural award ceremony held at National
Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD). Education Minister, Priya
Manickchand, in her address, said the programme seeks to determine how government and its
partners could inspire youths to become leaders in their communities. “Not only to do well
academically, because that is what is expected of you in the school system, but to explore your
talents and it doesn’t have to be a drawing, but in any art form to explore your ability to express
yourself in writing, to explore your ability to lead and that’s what we wanted to start to
encourage this countrywide search for leadership, and today, you see 11 persons from every
education district coming forward with at least one person who participated and won,”
Manickchand said.
The education minister noted that government’s mandate is to offer equitable opportunities in all
of its programmes to its citizens. “To us in this government service and the distribution of goods
and services and the preparations that I spoke about just now, will be equitably done and I’m not
asking you to hear my words, I’m asking you to judge us on our actions. You will see this, you
will see this equitable distribution as a verb, happening, in action,” she stressed.
China’s Ambassador to Guyana, H.E Guo Haiyan, disclosed that she is looking forward to the
next competition as it will allow the youth to share their views on the relationship between
Guyana and China. The ambassador appealed to the awardees to take full advantage of the other
opportunities offered by the Chinese Government in the areas of education.
Some awardees shared their experience. Allester Henry, a student from the Barima-Waini, stated
that the funds will help him further develop a community project on which he has been working.
“It will benefit my community in a positive way, because I will have enough allowances and
help better the project that I did… My project was to locate and set up a proper dumpsite because
my community doesn’t have one at the moment and so in addition, I will ask for help from the
government to aid me in doing a better system,” Henry said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Nanda Persaud expressed gratitude for the opportunity she was granted. “Words
cannot express how happy I am, because this has been a big opportunity for me and it has been
an experience, and I’m very happy that they will continue to have this programme because I
think there are many talents out there, it’s just the exposure they need,” Persaud declared.
Xaria Holder, another recipient of the award was pleased to have emerged a winner despite the
challenges faced throughout the competition. “It has helped me with my social skills and it was a
very long process and during that time I wasn’t always in Guyana so I also had to compete
virtually, so it was a challenge yes but I’m happy with the outcome…Well, I’m definitely
starting or continuing this so every year or at the beginning of every school term I’ll be sharing
out hampers and hopefully be able to meet more needs,” Holder added.
The leadership programme took the form of a competition. Participants were required to focus on
three critical areas; a community-based project, critique of a work of art and participation in
sporting activities.
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