WHEN newly-elected Executive President, Dr. Cheddi Jagan assumed office in 1992, the social, economic, and physical infrastructures were completely devastated, while the servicing of the inherited debt burden of this then completely-bankrupted country  ate up all the income of the treasury, and this stymied Government’s thrust to empower vulnerable communities.
As a result, many successful interventions to assist depressed communities, especially Albouystown, Tiger Bay, and Agricola, were undertaken by the Government, with support from primarily the private sector and the Guyana Police Force under Commissioner Laurie Lewis.
Many of those programmes have subsequently become integral to Government’s social development drive.
One of those successful collaborative programmes has assumed a synergy that has evolved to envelope communities on a national scale, and it all began with a simple request from then Chairman of the True Vision Foundation in Albouystown, Mr. Randolph Thorne, for Dr. Jagan to help his badly-depressed, problem-prone community out of the morass of criminality, depression and hopelessness it had sunk into over decades of neglect.
Dr. Jagan delegated dollar-a-year PR adviser, Mr. Vic Insanally, who had put all the resources of his business agency, Guyenterprise, to help with the restorative process of the country.  Vic’s immense standing in the business community was exploited to the fullest and the response by the private sector was immediate and satisfactory.
But two programmes that have been sustained began in Albouystown and Tiger Bay (Rosemary Lane).  Tony Amres of Readymix Concrete Ltd did an initial survey of the situation of Albouystown.  What he discovered was that, even on the hottest of days, many sections of the community remained under water, with faeces and garbage swirling around stairways.  Young people congregated and planned destructive things because there was no outlet for their energies, and the poverty was stark and searing.
The canal on the Boulevard had been filled in by a myopic administration and the Sussex Street canal was so clogged up that persons and animals could comfortably traverse its width without being bogged down.  The Sussex Street koker had been defunct for many years, with the channel absolutely silted up, making opening the sluice door an impossibility.  In addition, there was a fish-processing complex built on the Government reserves immediately next to the sluice, so it was impossible to get machinery close enough to dig the channel.  A Guyenterprise representative spearheaded a team, which strategized on ways to address all the burning issues that needed immediate redress.
The Local Government Ministry sent a backhoe to clear the Sussex Street canal.  Toolsie Persaud Ltd undertook to clear all the sections that the backhoe could not reach up to the koker.  Tony Amres prevailed on Eddie Vieira of EC Investments Ltd to load a hymac on a pontoon to dredge the outfall, while then Public Works Minister Tony Xavier bought tools and paid a labour force from the community to clean the drains and streets of the community.
The intent of the project was many-pronged.  Residents of the community were provided employment while the community was cleansed of decades of filth.  During that exercise it was discovered that Albouystown has probably the best drainage system in the city.  Also, for the first time in decades, Albouystown became completely dry on sunny days.  Pride slowly returned to the community and the residents began cleaning their yards and personal spaces, including their parapets.
The filled-in canal on the Boulevard, popularly called the Punt Trench Dam, had become a mountainous garbage dump from one end to the other.  Tony Xavier sent in equipment and members of the private sector provided trucks to haul away the garbage, after which Tony Amres covered the Boulevard with tons of sand, thereby providing a recreational area to the residents, and a playpark to the children of the community.
However, despite Government’s thrust to empower the vulnerable and eradicate poverty in the country there are many officials whose deficiencies in public service are derailing these people-developmental initiatives at ground level. 
As such, there is an imperative need for a holistic approach to spearhead a team to work with communities nationwide to address these anomalies on individual bases with compassion and a commitment to rectify the ills plaguing the vulnerable in society – which are contributing to many related social impediments, such as suicides and abuse in its myriad forms, even criminality.   Only persons who are prepared to work with wholehearted dedication and loyalty to help the national drive toward achieving reduction of society’s maladies can catalyse any change of consequence to  the social ills plaguing the society.
There are many NGOs formed countrywide merely to access funding from agencies, under the guise of undertaking people-empowerment initiatives.  However, most of these monies end up in private bank accounts and the ostensible developmental programmes serve just as fronts to fund lavish lifestyles for the directors/managers of these agencies, while they  dole out mere pittances at charity events to satisfy the funding agencies.
However, people do not want charity.  They need strategies for empowering themselves to do better for their families, and they need solutions to problems beyond their control; and because of the “tin gods” many are falling through the cracks and becoming lost.  People need to be treated with dignity instead of being derided and degraded in their times of need.  This does not often happen.  If a credible and committed body can formulate a structure whereby persons in communities can be provided a conduit through which their voices can be heard at the highest levels, working in collaboration with the various governmental sectors, and even external agencies, the problems of the common man – on individual bases, may not seem so insurmountable that he is forced to commit suicide; or resort to substance abuse and, consequently, abuse of his family.
Many times persons are submerged in situations and circumstances that can slowly devastate the soul and kill the human spirit.
The private sector was this Government’s backbone to development in its initial days.  To a greater or lesser extent in the years till now, it has continued to aid in the joint community and people-empowerment initiatives propelled and facilitated by the Government.