THIS week, we embarked on our campaign to interact with villages outside the city in order to highlight the social, economic, and everyday issues hampering development of residents there.

We targeted the West Coast Berbice area, and stopped at the small village of Hopetown, located about fifty-four miles from the city of Georgetown.

Welcome to Hopetown
Hopetown is bordered by the villages of Number 22 Bel Air, St. John and Bush Lot to the west, and by Fort Wellington to the east. Hopetown was bought by ex-slaves after the abolition of slavery.

The village awakes to the golden streams of sunlight and the enthusiastic chatter of children tumbling into their yards, some sleepily rubbing their eyes or grumbling under their breaths as mothers aggressively admonish them to have their morning chores done.

By the time the sun is fully up, children begin to spill into the streets, some under parental supervision, as they make their way to the Hopetown nursery or primary school, or the Bush Lot Secondary School.

Hopetown is fairly quiet on a normal day, although it is known for holding grand soirees as part of its Emancipation celebrations. Many residents are engaged in small-scale livestock and or cash-crop and/or rice farming, but some rice-land owners have rented their lands to other farmers because of the high cost of maintenance.

A few residents operate small shops and other small businesses, while still others work with the Central Government or the Regional Democratic Council (RDC).

The many small shops are open by the time the village awakes, as small-time entrepreneurs desperately try to net morning sales. Some parents make their way into their kitchen gardens in search of fresh vegetables or seasonings for the meals they are about to cook, and slowly but surely the village becomes fully awake.

Everyone can now get their hair well groomed at a very excellent location manned by ‘Marcus’, who lives in Beaten Ally; and several early school-leavers are now benefiting from ‘Project Youth Choice’, a President’s Youth Initiative programme that goes on at the Hopetown Training Centre.

Another UNDP-funded project now allows for the teaching of literacy, language and mathematics to school dropouts and slow learners. There is also a computer school, and the Grassroot Training Programme, which latter undertaking is a fast-track initiative made possible by the Ministry of Education to teach persons life-skills and entrepreneurship.

Students also participate in cake decoration and pastry-making to equip them with skills needed to make an extra dollar.

Some persons now make a living by selling snow cones, and a few by selling produce from their kitchen gardens at small stalls along the roadside. A hotel that will offer leisure-time opportunities as well as employment for villagers is soon to be opened in the village. This structure is already in the process of construction.

Villagers can now do all their shopping at the recently constructed Kash & Karry Supermarket and Boutique, which is really manned by a group of overseas-based former villagers of Hopetown.

The ‘Dem ah Watch Me’ Grocery and Mini Hangout Bar, owned by Althea Goodridge, also offers a form of relaxation for villagers who prefer a more quiet form of entertainment. The Merciless International Business Centre now houses an Internet café, and also sells stationery and does photocopying.

Constraints
While some development was evident, our reporter learnt from several interviews that the village was being severely affected by unemployment and garbage disposal problems.

Among the many persons who were more than ready to have discussion with this reporter was Carol Smith-Joseph, a teacher and Regional Counsellor for Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice). This friendly, intelligent woman indicated that unemployment was a major setback for the village, since a large number of students who would have written the CAPE and CXC examinations remain at home, or wander the streets, desperately awaiting responses from places they had applied to for employment.

She noted that only a few had been able to actually relocate to the city and obtain good jobs, since the majority could not afford the expenses of housing and other city responsibilities to afford them to relocate.

Consequently, Mrs. Joseph noted, several young, intelligent persons remain in the village, deeply frustrated by the problem of unemployment. She added that all the schools would have already had their full complement of teachers, thus making it impossible for qualified school leavers to access jobs there.

Inadequate recreational opportunities also really peeved Mrs. Joseph. “Hopetown is in dire need of adequate recreational facilities for the youths, and while we have a playfield and community centre, we definitely need variety where our recreational opportunities are concerned,” she explained.

She declared that there is need for corporate and governmental intervention to rescue Hopetown from its dire situation, emphasising that Hopetown village has, over the years, been the national champion in the sport of circle tennis, but that of late, this game has disappeared entirely from the village due to lack of funds to provide games items, or the complete absence of incentives for players.

Garbage, local and foreign
A retired headmistress, who prefers to be called ‘Teacher Patsy’, had quite a horrifying tale to tell. She related that the village is targeted by outsiders, who come in the quiet of the night to throw tons of garbage on the road shoulders and in open land spaces.
“These people are just terrible and heartless! Persons who operate businesses and other individuals come in the still of the night, when we are sleeping, and dump sometimes truckloads of garbage on our street corners or in open fields. Just last week, the boys chased a truck driver who attempted to dump a whole truckload of garbage in a vacant lot.”

She explained that when those litterbugs succeed in dumping their garbage in the village, “residents are forced to come together and remove or burn the mess they leave behind”. She stressed the need for a permanent dumpsite for villagers to put their garbage, since they do not have the luxury of garbage removal facilities, like obtains in the city of Georgetown.

Garbage cleanup and disposal becomes a real challenge in the month of August, when the village celebrates Emancipation and hosts the famous soiree celebrations which attract large numbers of patrons from all parts of Guyana.

Before time, the police would accompany villagers when they approach soiree revellers seeking to collect monetary donations which were used to pay persons to clean up the tons of garbage left in the streets after the event. Here of late, according to Teacher Patsy, the police have become reluctant to assist villagers, and revellers have become very abusive when mostly female villagers attempt to collect the small donation from them.

“This year, it was a disaster! The police did not cooperate with us, and when we attempted to collect donations from persons, they were very disrespectful to us, so we gave up the exercise entirely in frustration. As a result, tremendous garbage was left all over Hopetown for days after (the event). It was really a terrible sight.”

Recreation
The lack of adult entertainment was another concern for Teacher Patsy. “There is no proper form of clean and healthy entertainment for the elderly. Everything is about the big boom boxes and wild revelling for the youths.

Every weekend, starting from Friday, they set up the large boxes on the street side, and host big open air Jamaican-style parties, and the noise is deafening.”

She noted, however, that the Hopetown Anglican Church is, thankfully, formulating a Senior Citizens Club to ensure that older folks are properly entertained.

As ‘Teacher Patsy’ suggested, there are indeed signs of improvement in some sectors within the village. The cemetery, over the years, was in quite a ‘broken down condition’, and outsiders were also using it as a dumpsite for their garbage, until villagers angrily intervened. Now four very vigilant men look after the cemetery during the day, and it has also been spruced up, and many tombs have been repainted.

Several villagers are calling for Hopetown to have its own Health Centre, since the nearest such facility is at Bush Lot, which then has to accommodate villagers from Hopetown, Bush Lot, St John  and other areas.