Cloyette Harris-Stoute

EVERY so often, you may have seen an interesting post pop up on social media featuring the work and life of some impressive woman of Guyanese heritage from the website ‘Guyanese Girls Rock.’ Over the past few years, the site has picked up quite a following, with over 16,000 likes on Facebook alone, and many persons continue to look forward to the inspiring articles that showcase the talents, hard work and successes of Guyanese women from various parts of the world.

The face behind ‘Guyanese Girls Rock’ belongs to U.S.-based Guyanese Cloyette Harris- Stoute, whose idea to start the website in 2013 stemmed from a casual conversation with a passenger during a flight on her way back from Florida. “I was talking to a guy about Guyana and he didn’t know where it was, and then there is always this common thing we face where people get Guyana confused with Ghana, so that was really one of the things that sparked me to start it,” she said. But more importantly, having moved away from Guyana for almost 24 years, Cloyette admitted that it was the feeling that she had become disconnected with her country that really led to her to want to get closer to it.

“I had met a lot of people from Guyana, but at that time I wasn’t aware of other groups or organisations that had anything showcasing Guyanese and through social media you were seeing information on Guyana, but it was all the same thing; lots of things got recycled. So I decided, I knew everybody was blogging and I wanted to do something, so I said let me try my hand at it. I wanted to do something on the country and something on women,” she

said. Cloyette then started by simply researching online and finding women who were from Guyana, then posting about their successes on a Facebook page she had created.

“Slowly, people started to respond and comment and that was encouraging for me and then I started to do more and more,” she said. Soon, she created the website and things started to take off. “People started emailing me telling me they really like what I was doing. One woman from Ohio, where not a lot of Caribbean people live, reached out to me and said, ‘I am so happy that I found this website, because being that far away or not having a lot of Caribbean people, I feel more connected and it gave me a sense of pride.’”
Before long, Cloyette no longer had to search due to the large number of referrals that started pouring in. “I get to meet amazing people. I get so excited when someone reaches out to me and I can see what they are doing; it gives me a sense of pride to do it,” she said.

Making it a movement
Seeing the success that she had with the site, Cloyette decided it was time to do a bit more for the women she featured. In 2016, she created a Guyanese Girls Rock non-profit organisation within which now has a scholarship fund for women enrolled in two-year and four-year university programmes. The scholarship awards successful young women with a laptop to aid in their work. “Not every young woman can purchase a laptop and in the age of technology in order to inspire a new generation of young women in technology, they have to be equipped with the tools,” Cloyette said. Last year, U.S.-based Guyanese Kelly Hyles, who made international news after being accepted to all eight Ivy League schools in the U.S., was the first recipient of the Guyanese Girls Rock scholarship. “We hope to award more young women being given this opportunity, but it is all based on financing, and hopefully we can also offer them a stipend as well,” she said.

Cloyette is also working on creating a leadership programme for young women between the ages of 12 and 18. The programme, she said, will provide mentoring and other opportunities to the participants.
Now with Guyanese Girls Rock bringing inspiration to young women and girls, Cloyette admits that it not only gives her a sense of pride, but has definitely eased her feeling of being disconnected from her home.

“Living in the U.S. can be a lonely place if you don’t make those connections. It is not Guyana where everybody knows everybody; where you can come out and say good morning to your neighbours. There are lots of Guyanese in New York, but if you live in other states where there are not a lot of Guyanese, it is easy to lose that culture because you aren’t embedded in that.

Luckily for me I realised that because there are some Guyanese who are totally disconnected…So I was able to recognise that after a while I was not involved,” she said. “‘Guyanese Girls Rock’ is a movement and it gives people a sense of pride knowing that you have somebody to champion for; to root for; to celebrate for. When you see people achieve to that level you get excited when they reach that type of recognition.”
Now feeling more connected to her home this is inspiration for Cloyette to also return home more often. Her last visit was in 2015 for a Women’s Conference.