VISITING Canadian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, Diane Ablonczy has praised the community of Buxton for emerging victorious from their troubles of five years ago. The Canadian Minister paid a visit to the community ahead of the commencement of her official visit to this country which will begin when she meets Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and later President Donald Ramotar.
The minister paid a visit to the community’s Buxton New Developers Foundation which is housed in a recently constructed building in the Vigilance play field. The construction of the building was made possible with several partners including the Canadian High Commission of Guyana.
Ms. Ablonczy said that it was an honour to be welcomed to the community by the bright faces of dozens of children. Looking around at the gender ratio represented yesterday the minister reminded that in some parts of the world a community is represented by its women, in an apparent reference to the many females who were present at yesterday’s event.
According to the Canadian Minister it is not every day that she is exposed to new knowledge and yesterday was one of those days that she learns new things.
Ms. Ablonczy said that she learnt that leadership matters and makes a huge difference in changing situations.  She however cautioned that while there are so many things to be done in the world there are very little people who take that bold step forward to make those things happen that will make a positive impact in the lives of others and the surroundings.
She told the young people that knowledge is power and while many of them a year ago could not have read they have now been able to get that reading power because of the initiative of the leaders in their community and the work of the Buxton Developers Foundation.
The Canadian Minister of State praised the leaders of the community for making their community a better and safer place as against five years ago where according to Ms. Ablonczy “had a lot of dangers for families and young people”. She said that while Canada and Guyana are far apart the hearts of the two countries remain together.
Meanwhile, founder of the Buxton Developers Foundation, Robin Philips, said the group is now seven years old having started in the market place at the Buxton Railway Embankment and which was in a terrible and deplorable state at the time. The Foundation officially started engaging young people on March 10, 2005.
He said that while the group initially targeted young people from the community it has now expanded and serves dozens of children from surrounding communities. He said that the real idea was getting the children gainfully occupied especially after noticing that there was a great level of deficiency in the area of literacy especially at the lower level.
He said that he knew that getting children to just show up for any academic classes would be a hard task so he decided to invite them through sports and from there they were invited into the class room. One child has since announced that he has been able to gain surprise grades at the National Grade six Assessment which got him into a secondary school at the.
The founder disclosed that the group was fortunate to have received the assistance of Canada through the Canadian High Commissioner that saw them being able to erect a brand new building. He said that the classes were then able to be transferred from the market place to the building which is more spacious and safer for the children and those who volunteer their services.
Following her visit to the new building, the minister and her delegation including Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, David Devine and a delegation from the Embassy and Guyana’s local foreign Affairs Office were escorted by the police to the Buxton market on the railway Embankment where the children first took classes. The minister and the team spend approximately twenty minutes in the building as they spoke on one topic to the next and were also given a brief history of the facility and the community.
Yesterday the children sang songs and offered words of appreciation to the team for supporting the efforts of making their foundation worthwhile. The Foundation has also received assistance from the Rotary Club of Stabroek.