IN light of their five consecutive volunteer programming years in Guyana, CUSO held a cocktail reception to commemorate this occasion at the Georgetown Club on Wednesday evening. Volunteers and members of organisations for the physically challenged, along with non-profit organisations happily graced the event with their presence. Daniel Joly, Head of Development Cooperation – Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago spared no words in enlightening the audience of CUSO’s remarkable achievements in Guyana.

Joly engaged the audience by highlighting CUSO’s volunteers potential of incredibly unlocking local organisations and advancing their development agenda in order to reduce poverty and inequality in Guyana.
He further noted that volunteers were placed with local partners to share experiences, skills, expertise and perspectives. As such, this model of development cooperation he noted “has been tried and tested since 1962 when CUSO would have placed its first volunteer in Guyana.”
“CUSO has been placing volunteers in Guyana for fifty-three (53) years and I believe Guyana was among the very first countries to host Canadian CUSO volunteers,” added Joly. He then stated that this labels CUSO a real part of Guyana’s history and a “key player” in the strengthening of relations between Canada and Guyana.
ACHIEVEMENTS
A few of the achievements are: CUSO support for the creation of the National Volunteerism Platform to encourage and help organise local volunteers in building their own communities and reducing poverty; increased awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by persons living with disabilities, enhanced the capacity of the National Commission on Disability to build a strong, rights-based, disability movement; advocated for improved services for disadvantaged rural women, men and youth farmers through improved market access and the diversification of income-generation opportunities; and, has helped to build awareness of violence against women, children and other vulnerable groups, including the LGBT community.
“While not exhaustive, this list demonstrates how CUSO’s work has provided a base for and complemented the CA$600M Caribbean Regional Development Programme, announced by Prime Minister Harper in 2007,” stressed Joly.
Joly further stated that these achievements have paved the way for Canada’s current CA$20M Caribbean Education for Employment and has become a regional programme, whereby CUSO is helping Caribbean institutions to develop technical and vocational training programmes in the key economic sectors through partnerships between Canadian and Caribbean colleges and institutions.
WORKS AND IMPLEMENTATION
Over the years however, CUSO has undertaken programmes in the education, health, agriculture, disability, gender, natural resource management, among other sectors in Guyana. These interventions have thus laid the foundation for, or, at times, complemented the Government of Canada’s own assistance programmes, first in Guyana, then in the Caribbean Region.
CUSO International has implemented a strategy to enhance the capacity of teachers to deliver relevant and inclusive education, and to strengthen the ability of technical education partners to move towards market-driven programmes.

With a focus on Special Education, Curriculum Development and Teacher Training, CUSO has partnered with the Ministries of Education and Culture, Youth and Sport; with the National Centre for Educational Resource Development; The Cyril Potter College of Education; and the KuruKuru Training Centre to help enhance the basic quality of education in Guyana.
These interventions complemented the Government-of-Canada-funded Guyana Basic Education Teacher Training Programme (GBET). This programme has supported the strengthening of basic education teacher training systems and has tremendously improved the quality of basic education in five interior regions of Guyana.
Through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, the Government of Canada has however, provided CA$67M for CUSO’s International Volunteer Cooperation Programme for the 2009-2015 period. The programme has supported the placement of some 1,500 volunteers in 26 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, to increase the impact of Canadian development assistance and strengthen the capacity of country partners to deliver and sustain development results.
Remarkable comments were made by Guyana Youth Challenge’s Executive Officer, Dimitri Nicholson, in relation to CUSO’s collaboration with the organization, since they (CUSO) would have impacted them positively throughout the past five years. Similar sentiments were expressed by other volunteer representatives that graced the function with their presence.