Madhia – Region # 8 Outreach – Pt. 1

Last week an AFC team comprising Region 8 Councillor, Clyde Edwards, Andrew Correia and I went on an outreach to Region Eight sub-region One, where we were joined by AFC Regional MP, Eula Marcello, Regional Chairman, Mark Crawford, Councillor Naiem Gafoor, Councillor Bridgette Marco and others.  The team visited Mahdia, Campbelltown and Princeville.

At a meeting with REO Harsaywak

Clyde and I met with the REO, Ronald Harsaywak, who was very courteous. We discussed roads, water, electricity and the students at the Mahdia dorms. He mentioned that $76M is budgeted for this year for roads and $40M will be used to asphalt the internal Mahdia roads starting from the airstrip. They will also build concrete drains.

I also had a meeting with all the Committees – works, finance, education, health and security. They updated me on what they were doing presently and their plans for the future. Basically my aim was to find out how well they were functioning, to gently get them back on track if necessary and to discuss the issues that were supposed to be brought up at the RDC meeting the following day.

Committees’ Meeting

At the RDC Meeting

We attended the two-day RDC meeting and met with councilors from the Pakaraimas. All agreed that it was the best RDC meeting they had in a long time. The REO attended both days and the councilors brought up all the issues that were discussed at the Committees meeting the previous evening. Councilors Gafoor, Pastor Skeete and the APNU councilor, Timothy made excellent presentations while the North Pakaraimas councilors also made representations for various communities. A visiting commander and the Police-in-charge of the Mahdia Station also attended for two hours and were able to answer questions posed to them by councilors, which were mainly about ammunition and guns for farmers, how to acquire them and the need for more police presence in some villages in the Pakaraimas.

Interactive meeting at Campbelltown

CAMPBELLTOWN: The meeting at Campbelltown was an interactive one where residents expressed the concerns of their community. At such short notice the turnout was very good.

1. YOUTHS – Youths who graduated from school and school dropouts in the community need jobs. Some smoke marijuana and the police would come into the village, pick them up and take them to the police station. This is a constant worry for the parents of Campbelltown.
2. Parents said sports would help to occupy the youths time in a healthy and useful manner. I promised to take a football coach on my next visit to start training both male and female youths interested in the game. In the meantime I presented them with two cricket bats.
3. VILLAGE ECONOMY – Besides mining the men of Campbelltown also do some logging but it is very difficult to operate without proper equipment. A few of them have power saws but they said that a Woodmizer (portable sawmill) would be the solution which the village could manage. There are many houses right now that are covered with tarpaulin – both on the roofs and around – the reason for this being that boards are too expensive because it is a lot of work to produce them with a power saw.  They are not dressed boards either. A Woodmizer Portable Sawmill on the other hand, would produce dressed boards quickly and several persons will be employed on a long term basis. Mahdia is a growing community and the Indigenous Community of Campbelltown could naturally benefit from this growth providing they are equipped with the necessary tools. The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs should seriously look into this aspect of the village economy and advise the council on how to obtain a grant to get the lumber operations running in the near future. As a Ministry they can do this quite easily and these are the type of projects that they should be working on so that residents of Indigenous villages can earn their own money without depending on the Ministry or the Government to give them handouts. Miners of Campbelltown also pay village tributes and this is used for other developmental projects in the village. The women, I found out, do not know how to make Amerindian craft at all but are interested in learning to cook so I promised to hold a 2-week cooking class for them during the August holidays.
4. ELECTRICITY – Only the front of this village gets electricity. They were promised approximately 28 solar panels since 2010 but unto now have not received any. They have now decided that whenever they received the panels they will distribute them to the satellite villages of Princeville and Moruwa. Mahdia has a generator that can power the whole of Campbelltown and the Region should consider using this generator to supply Campbelltown with electricity.
5. WATER – The REO had told me that they were awaiting the village to tell them when they are ready to lay the pipes in the village. The toshao told me that they still have to buy a few more pipes then they will let the Regional administration know when they were ready.
6. POLITICS – On the political side Mark and Gafoor spoke about the hard time they (the councilors) are getting from the REO to get things done for the region.One woman stood up and said that we must not blame the government but the people who work with the government for all the bad works that are taking place. Eula Marcello, AFC M.P. spoke on health, the shortage of drugs and the transfer of the doctor who turns up to work whenever he feels like. Juan Hunte spoke about finance and how important it is to keep proper records and have accountability and transparency. I spoke about the $500M that the Minister of Amerindians asked for to spend within 2 weeks on them, the budget situation, the importance of voting and supporting your Party and why we need a new Government. This brought up the issue of late registration; I promised to send the necessary forms for them so that they can apply for their birth certificates and be ready to vote.
7. VISITS: They made it clear that they needed to see their elected regional officers more at village meetings especially and were happy that Mark, Gafoor, Eula and I were on hand that day to answer their questions. It was a very revealing meeting … even I got pulled up for not going back there since last year so I had to explain our financial situation to them.

N.B. I will post the meeting at Princeville next.

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