Georgetown: The notion that volunteerism is a feature that could play an important part in moulding the minds of young people towards making a meaningful contribution to national development has prompted Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkette, to consider engaging discussions with the Ministries of Education and Labour. The Minister’s disclosure was forthcoming yesterday as she addressed a gathering at the Brickdam, Georgetown, office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), during the launch of its 2011 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report.
Even as she amplified the need to sustain volunteerism she alluded to the importance of instilling, very early, the spirit of volunteerism in young children. “I might need to have a discussion with (the Ministries of) Education and Labour for us to start looking back at what we can do to instil this very early in our kids because I think it is very, very important…even today we find people complaining to me sometimes that to get persons in their communities to do some very simple tasks…they ask to be paid. And so I think volunteerism starts very early and we have to instil those values very early,” she asserted.
The Minister reflected that as a young person there were things that “we did in our school that were considered volunteering; whether we swept the classroom, scrubbed the desk or did the roster for who will sweep next. Today some people tell me this is child labour.”
According to the Minister she is aware that a research has been conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports together with the Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) and the United Nations volunteer programme which has stated clearly that volunteerism will continue to play an important role in moulding the minds of young people. This process, she is confident will continually serve to make a meaningful contribution to national development and “we must use every opportunity to forward this agenda. She alluded to the possibility of volunteerism heading “further down the declining path if we don’t work now to ensure that it is instilled in our young people.”
The Minister nonetheless pointed to her belief that Guyana’s experiences resonate well with the 2011 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report definition of the spirit of volunteerism which speaks to a powerful means of engaging people in tackling developmental challenges thereby transforming the pace and nature of development. It is against this background, she said that volunteerism will remain on the national radar as efforts are made to forge forward to build a better Guyana for all.
As such Minister Rodrigues-Birkette in her remarks commended the efforts of the United Nations for taking the lead in presenting the report and to all those who played a role in its successful compilation. The report, she noted, encompasses a vision of volunteerism and examines how it relates to some of the peace and development challenges in the world today. It also serves to highlight the benefits and contributions of traditional volunteering which in response to the complexities of globalization has adapted a greater pool of individuals and groups willing to render their services to assist humankind in overcoming the diverse, social, economic, environmental and other challenges, she added.
However, the Minister pointed out that the importance of volunteerism is generally underscored when “we consider the improvements in the health and education sectors that are crucial to poverty reduction and human survival.” The evolving nature of volunteerism, she added, offer magnificent development prospects, which for Guyana means forging greater ties to harness the services of the Diaspora, a sustained partnering spirit for the realization of the Millennium Development Goals, which needless to say put the people at the center of development. “I mentioned the Diaspora here because I know that apart from many willing people in Guyana there are other persons of Guyanese descent who live abroad and would like, in some way or another, to contribute back to country….And we are working on a project in this regard where we will create a database of our citizens who are abroad who are willing to contribute in one way or the other.”
And so it is in this context, the Minister noted, that “we need not lose sight of the fact that volunteerism also offers an opportunity to engage Guyana’s youths in their communities even preparing them for employment and instilling civic pride…in other words nurturing lifelong values that they would need.”
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