PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has urged awardees of the President’s Youth Award Republic of Guyana to fight divisions based on race, religion or gender, protect the freedoms that they now enjoy, and hold in high esteem the awards they have received.
He was at the time addressing hundreds of young awardees at a ceremony held at the National Cultural Centre last evening.
He said that the awardees undertook difficult tasks which have resulted in their being recognised at yesterday’s ceremony.
“We have to appreciate the support that your parents and guardians gave you in this personal undertaking and we have to appreciate also the efforts you yourself made in undertaking the tasks that were set for you,” the President said.
“We need in this country to ensure that we appreciate positive efforts. The whole story of the award is one about positive energy…instilling positive values in people,” he said.
“This is a story not just of personal growth for you. You grow academically, you mature mentally, you grow socially and you grow to love this country that belongs to all of us,” he said. He said too that not only is it important to have personal growth, but also social capital formation in the country, “because social energy, all of us together working in consort, that will change our country.”
He spoke of the fact that Guyanese had to fight for dignity in their own land, against the colonisers. He said too that the fight had continued for democratic rule. “We have seen the consequence of undemocratic rule in many parts of the world. When people don’t have freedom, they lose initiative, they lose drive. They can never really blossom. They can’t fulfil their dreams,” he said.
“So we must all cherish freedom as a very sacred value. Today in our country – with all its faults – we live in freedom. Gone are the days when people are going to come after you because you express a view, or when your parents would land in jail for having another view publicly expressed,” he said.
“You are fortunate that you live in [such a free] society. But you also have to ensure that it remains like this. You always have forces – the naysayers. Many long for those days when you did not have to be accountable,” he said.
“If you have conviction and drive, and if you believe in yourself, then you can overcome anything,” he said, telling them about the hurdles he had to overcome when he became a minister during his 20s and the President in his 30s.
“Today, young people are demonstrating what they can do for our country. It doesn’t mean that we don’t value the wisdom or the sacrifices and the efforts and contributions of the older people. But societies that are young are societies that would be in a growth mode,” he said.