THE Shaheed Boys and Girls Orphanages have issued a public appeal through the Board of Management and the executive of the Guyana United Sadr Islamic Anjuman for assistance to run their facilities.According to a release by Chairman of the Board of Management of the Orphanages, Badruddin Hassan, the Shaheed Boys and Girls Orphanages were established in the 1950’s as institutions to provide care, home and facilities for the orphans, vulnerable and destitute children of our community.
They have remained the only legitimate institutions in the Muslim community for the provision of care, facilities and services to the orphans and vulnerable children of (mainly) the Muslim community, the release noted.
The Shaheed Orphanages are landmark institutions not only to the Muslim community, but to the Guyanese nation.
The Shaheed Orphanages remained as the beacon for the care of the orphaned and vulnerable children in our society and in their decades of existence, provided care and facilities to thousands of children. These institutions have provided wonderful support to successive Governments over the decades as valuable social sector contributors.
The present management committee places a tremendous amount of importance on financial accountability of these institutions. And from the inception, we hired a management firm to manage the financial portfolio of these institutions. We remain the only such institution to have done this. We have created with Demerara Bank, a bank account for every orphan within the Shaheed Orphanages, and the monies are given to the children after they leave the orphanages. This is in addition to the $50,000 provided by the Board to every child leaving here.
The provision of facilities which are of the highest standard is a major goal of the management committee and since our assumption of control, each year, millions of dollars are spent to repair, build and acquire facilities for the children. In this past year, we have spent millions to refurbish facilities at the Orphanages.
We have recognised the importance of counseling to these children and have employed our own trained counselor at these institutions to assist these children in being reintegrated with the society. We remain the only such institution to have done that, the release said.
We continue to work closely with the Ministry of Social Protection in our operation of these institutions and regularly meet with the officials to ensure that we keep the Shaheed Orphanages in line with what is required by the Ministry and to seek advice on our operation of these institutions. In line with security concerns for our children, and based on recommendations from the Ministry, the Orphanages have installed top class security surveillance systems to allow us to better monitor these institutions. The management is now able to monitor these institutions from our homes or offices at any hour of the day or night. We remain the first of such institutions to do so.
Meanwhile, the Board is in the process of creating a playground for these children at our Oleander Gardens location. Towards this, we have spent over $3M in preparatory works but we are unable to move further due to our lack of financial resources. However, we hope to soon acquire the necessary funds which will see the completion of this playground, fully equipped with day/night capability (floodlights), equipment for maintaining the playground, as well as swings, slides etc. We are positive that this can be a reality before the end of 2015
The Orphanages during this year has fulfilled its dream of acquiring a bus for these children. We thank the former Minister Anil Nandlall for his assistance in the orphanages obtaining a duty free concession from the Government of Guyana to acquire this vehicle.
The best that we can do for our children is to give them the best opportunity for education. In recognition of this, the Shaheed Orphanages has placed our children into private schools to give them a new opportunity at acquiring a good education. While this is being done at a tremendous cost to the management, we are certain it will be worth it. This was the biggest achievement of the management during the year, the release added.