Former national footballer now entrepreneur Colin Tasher has been visiting here in Guyana ahs sought to deliver this article on the topic Education a path out of Poverty
Tasher who was the first captain for Western United Football Club now BK Western Tigers Football Club has represented Guyana under the Lennox Arthur coaching era in 1975 playing against Trinidad & Tobago after migrating to Barbados to become the first Guyanese footballer to play in the 2nd and later 1st division football league for Pinelands Football Club in 1980. For years. Churches and other religious organizations have waged aggressive campaigns to fight poverty. But in today’s world, education rather than just charity is the most effective weapon. Is it time for a new strategy?
In the hardscrabble world of Guyana’s depression era my mummy said there were two pictures on the wall Jesus and President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham. There was more behind those pictures than the wall of course. Both men were viewed as saviors, one from sin and the other was the worst of poverty.
Poverty is a monster; it saps the will and can kill the spirit. For Guyanese children, who grow up in it, poverty is also a dream snatcher, oftentimes snatching the dream of a better life before it can rise above the cracked plaster ceiling.
Nearly every religion gets this one of the five pillars of Islam is almsgiving aimed at helping the poor. The Hebrews scripture laid out an entire economic system designed to eliminate poverty. There were steaming laws requiring that a certain amount of grain be left behind for the poor and tithing laws that provided similar sustenance. There were even laws that prohibited lenders from charging interest so strong was the Hebrews commitment to ending poverty that every seventh year, all outstanding debts were to be forgiven. Every 50 years land was returned to its original owners. Guyanese churches have also done their part to confront the scorge of poverty.
No wonder the bible is filed with these little gems, ‘happy are those who help the poor. The lord will help them when they are in trouble. Psalm 41:1 ‘when you give money to the poor, it is like lending to the lord. The lord will pay you back”. Proverbs 19:17.
Even Jesus inaugural sermon in his hometown of Nazareth begins “the spirit of the lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor”.
A different World
Here’s the winkle. The world has change, soup kitchens and emergency shelters alone can’t do the job and handing out money certain won’t solve the problem. To the contrary, such charity might will create a dependency in the beneficiaries’ that undermines their long term chances for success. Even job training doesn’t go far enough if it’s geared to an economy that no longer exist. We can’t just teach people to weld. We have machines that can weld. We can’t just teach people to point we also have to employed again and again. We are living in an information communication and technological area (ICT). People are now paid for what they know rather the what they do when knowledge becomes the commodity that drives an economy, education is the only ticket in. in fact, a high quality education is the only long term solution to poverty in the highly competitive economy of the 21st century.
For my Guyanese brothers and sister, this is the time that we look to the future with an ICT mind set. As for the new administration and new parliament if you want to win the war on poverty, then remember this; its education.