FOUNDED some six years ago, members of the Faith Farmers’ Group at the Indigenous settlement of Mashabo continue to invest their faith in agriculture as a means of empowerment and sustenance of their livelihoods.The group, made up mostly of women, had a few years ago seen the need for a vibrant village farm, since villagers had to travel out of the scenic community to get their greens and vegetables from sellers on the Essequibo Coast main road.

To get out of the 17.5 square mile village, residents have to cross the breathtaking Itiribisi Lake to get to Huist T’Dieren, a journey of about five miles that takes some 40 minutes by speedboat. But this is not the only exit point of the village, which is believed to have been first settled by Carib Indians some 300 years ago.

Mashabo is connected to Huist T’Dieren by a rugged two-mile-long trail with unforgiving terrain. It takes a visitor about three hours to navigate the at-times one-foot-wide hilly pathway surrounded by thick vegetation to reach Huist T’Dieren. Here is the point of access to the villages along the 37.5 mile coast from the main public road.

Head of the farmers’ group, Elaine Charles, told the Guyana Chronicle that the journey out of the village to buy greens and vegetables was long an arduous, and this is what really made a village farm necessary.

“It was no easy journey; but now, even though the hot weather has been taking a toll on our farm, it has not destroyed it. We plant red beans, bitter cassava and cash crops, and most of (our produce) is sold to the village shop which is managed by the Village Council,” Charles said.

The richly fertile five-acre farm supplies the village with produce year-round, and enables the planters to earn an additional income to better support their families.

When the produce from the village farm is sold to the village shop, the proceeds are turned over to the settlement’s nursery and primary schools, which offer hot meals to the students in a programme that runs from Monday to Friday during the school year.

The meals consist of fish and chicken and greens and vegetables. Some of the chicken and fish are supplied by villagers, but rice and other groceries are purchased by the shop from the supermarkets on the bustling coast.

Aside from it providing an additional income, the women see the farm as a means of empowerment, as it in a way helps them to directly participate and contribute to the development and sustenance of their community.

The cassava from the farm is processed by the women into cassava bread and cassareep, and sold to the 450 residents in the settlement. This is the only agro-processing that is done on the settlement.

The group, in the near future, intends to expand cultivation to 10 acres, and Charles is hoping that with some support from Government, the villagers would be trained and could one day acquire a plant to process their cash crops.

Residents also engage in farming and fishing, but they depend mainly on forestry and mining to earn a living.
Charles said the farmers’ group also engages in sewing and produces the school uniforms for the children in the settlement. But the machine that was given to the group by Government a few years ago went down, and the village in now reliant on a machine owned by Charles. She is asking the Government to generously provide a new sewing machine to the people of Mashabo.

Mashabo residents are a happy people, and they are very welcoming to visitors. Apart from a shop and schools, the village has a health centre, community ground with pavilion, village office, headteacher’s and teacher’s quarters, and several newly-constructed benabs.
In the afternoons, when not in the playfield or doing household chores, residents can be seen relaxing under the benabs, taking in the fresh, cool breeze while observing activities ongoing on the lake.

Recently, the Government introduced the Hinterland Employment and Youth Services Programme in Mashabo, and the 20 participants from the settlement have welcomed the initiative. Under the programme, residents are instructed in capacity-building, life skills, entrepreneurship, eco-tourism, agriculture, and the flagship course: concentrated language experience.

Toshao Sylvin Raphael also told this publication that the programme is very useful in terms of building human resource capacity for development of the village. And on this point, he called on Government to help the community build a guest house and promote Mashabo as a tourism-based destination.