-ahead of arrival of home-run systems in November
A TRAINING programme for residents of hinterland communities which will be benefitting from Solar Power Home Systems under the Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) moves to the Rupununi this week. This LCDS project is being executed by the Project Management Office, Office of the President, acting as Coordinator, with the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) responsible for procurement and monitoring activities with support from the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs.
The 11,000-odd Solar Home Systems being procured for Amerindian communities under the Hinterland Electrification Programme (HEP) will begin arriving in the country in November, but the training of members of these  communities  has  begun and is ongoing.
According to Mr. Horace Williams of the Hinterland Electricity Program (HEP) at OPM, approximately 112 residents from five communities in the North and South Rupununi will receive the standard one-week training in the installation and maintenance of the solar panels.
Training will be held simultaneously in Lethem, Shulinab, Aishalton, Karasabai and Annai, with resource personnel drawn from Government agencies, including the Hinterland Electrification Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister, the Guyana Energy Agency, the Guyana Power and Light, the Ministry of Public Works and the Electrical Inspectorate.
Williams said the Rupununi leg of the training programme follows one held for residents of Amerindian communities in Regions Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), Three (Essequibo Islands/West Demerara), Four  (Demerara/Mahaica), Five (Mahaica/Berbice) and Six (East Berbice/Corentyne) a week ago.
This first programme at reference was held at the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Training Centre in Sophia, here in the city. 
Thirty-three persons, including a number of young females, passed end-of-course tests aimed at certifying their competence in the installation and maintenance of the Solar Home Systems.
Several other programmes for other representatives of the 188 communities targeted under the HEP will be held in those communities, and are all programmed to end before November.
Williams said the intention is that training of all the beneficiaries is completed before the panels arrive, so that when they do, everything will have already been in place for their installation without undue delay.
President Bharat Jagdeo first announced the solar electrification project at the launch of Amerindian Heritage Month celebrations last September.
He’d noted then that the majority of hinterland households, 80 per cent of which comprised the Amerindian population, were without access to basic electricity.
The LCDS-led Hinterland Electrification Programme is intended to rectify this long-pervading inequity by providing access to clean and renewable energy in 10,500 Amerindian households for about 188 Amerindian communities that remain un-served.
The funds for this LCDS project should have come from a forest-saving deal with Norway, but to date the money has not been released to the government. 
President Jagdeo was recently quoted as saying that the government will not wait any longer for the money from Norway, but will go ahead with the programme, using funds from the national treasury.