TRAVELLING to school by boat has now been made less dangerous for children living along the banks of the Port Kaituma River channel with the donation of a quantity of life jackets by a reputable businessman from the Region 1 private sector.

Port Kaituma transport and communication service operator Mr. Earle Lambert, who has spent a considerable period of his life in the sub-region operating a shipping and communication service that caters for external transportation needs as well, made the donation a few weeks ago to the Regional Administration at Port Kaituma, and asked that the items be utilized by the school children.
He observed that children who live on the banks of the Kaituma River channel and travel to school in open boats along the pitch black waters can expose themselves to dangers. And with this in mind, he undertook the philanthrophic gesture. He said he also has in mind donating to the region a boat which can ferry school children exclusively to and from school, so that they are not caught up with the mad rush in having to utilize public transportation service.
Lambert is the son of veteran trade unionist Isaac Lambert, a pioneer in development of the Matthew’s Ridge/Port Kaituma Sub-Region. Earle Lambert recalled his late father’s desire and dream for development of young people of the sub-region.
In those days (the mid-fifties and onwards), Isaac Lambert worked as a train driver with the expatriate management of the Matthew’s Ridge manganese mining industry. He had told of the bulk of the young men of the sub-region working in what were referred to as ‘the mines’, either as equipment operators or doing other less prestigious jobs, as in either loading bauxite ships or on the conveyor line in the industry; and invariably, there was no security of tenure.
In fact, large numbers of young men had made a virtual mass exodus out of the coastlands to the North West District in search of jobs within the Matthew’s Ridge manganese industry. They were notably from villages such as Buxton, Golden Grove, Ann’s Grove, and to a lesser extent the Essequibo Coast. The jobs undertaken were tedious, and because of the virtual ‘boom’ in the manganese industry, there was an attendant ‘free flow of money’ in Matthew’s Ridge and surrounding communities of Port Kaituma, Arakaka and Pomeroy, to name a few.
At weekends, there was virtual uncontrolled ‘partying’, many of which erupted into brawls and in which persons were killed. With the eventual change of fortunes, dethroning manganese as king in the local economy, that way of life ceased.
Consequently, many young people (men especially) opted to develop themselves academically. Many learnt a trade; others turned to agriculture, qualifying themselves at agricultural training institutes and obtaining technical jobs in the field; while others acquired office skills and the like. But, over time, with less money turning over in the mining communities, there was attendant migration of skills to the capital city, Georgetown, resulting in a paucity of skills for development.
Whereas the mid 50s and 60s had been characterized by a mad ‘manganese rush’ to Matthew’s Ridge and Port Kaituma, ironically, what is being witnessed in the same sub-region (Matthew’s Ridge/Port Kaituma) today is a veritable mad rush to the gold fields, with able-bodied young men once more leaving the coastland in droves to make ‘quick money’ in the gold mining interior, despite all its attendant dangers.
And so the region once more faces a dearth of much needed skills for development, those having been lost to the gold mining industry, despite the dangers associated with gold mining.
With some knowledge of what had transpired through the years, Earle Lambert has a heart burdened for the young people of Port Kaituma, and has resolved that if there is anything he could do to aid in their personal and academic development while safeguarding them from impending danger, he would gladly do it.
In a recent interview with the Sunday Chronicle, Lambert lamented the fact that there is no scope for young people at Port Kaituma to become intellectually developed after leaving school. Some even drop out of school before completing primary education, feeling that it is okay to turn to the life of ‘pork-knocking’ in a mining camp. But life in the gold fields has its challenges and dangers for young men, as is daily evidenced in the media — industrial accidents, murders, road fatalities.
And there are other dangers which young women would do well to avoid.
Against this backdrop, Earle Lambert is proposing that, to save the young people of the region, there should be establishment of a training school at which they could be taught skills – information technology, construction, agricultural and automotive mechanics, welding and fabricating, fitter machining and other trades.
He is of the view that there should be incentives for young women to become trained as teachers, nurses, and other such skills. Care for the Young (day care services), cosmetology and catering are all skills which, based on surveys done, can earn a young woman in the community a decent and comfortable standard of living, he said.
Reflecting on what could now be considered a dangerous pattern which existed during the ‘manganese rush’ and is now resurfacing in the ‘gold rush’, Lambert says it’s about time the people of Port Kaituma and Matthew’s Ridge take stock and implement definitive steps to avoid the dangers to which they are being exposed.