THE village of Zorg, Essequibo Coast last weekend held its first annual Village Day celebrations under the theme “One people, One village, Celebrating in unity”. The celebrations, which began on Saturday, brought villagers together in an atmosphere of love, peace, togetherness and brotherhood.

The day’s activities began with a fitness walk, with villagers walking around the village twice under a unity banner. This was followed by an interfaith service, involving the three main religions.
Region 2 Chairman, Mr Devanand Ramdatt, delivered the feature address at the main event.
The chairman said the village day activity which is held in memory of the late Clive Gobin will become an annual event.
The late Gobin was a very active member in the community who unfortunately died from cancer last year.
The chairman said the idea for a village day came from Gobin who also played a very important role in developing the sport facility at Zorg.
Mr Ramdatt said the village of Zorg has a lot of young persons and he urged them to help in the transformation of the community.
After the chairman’s address, the first-day activities continued with the finals of the Clive Gobin hard ball competition on the Zorg sports ground.
The activity was followed by a tape ball competition.
Other activities during the day included a domino competition, Zorg princess pageant competition for girls under two, a talk on the history of the village, and storytelling by village elders.
On Sunday, the activities continued with a village run and bird whistling competition in the early morning while during the day several booths were set up on the Zorg sports ground where village memories and old photographs were displayed.

There were also booths that offered free blood pressure testing and display of agriculture produce.

Several games including football, a coconut version of shot put about who could throw the dry coconut the furthest, greasy pig competition, and duck catching were held.

There was also an award ceremony for all the competitions and prizes were also handed out for best essay, oldest villager, oldest couple, and those with outstanding contributions to education, culture, sports, agriculture and health.

Raul Rooplall, Coordinator of the celebrations said the activity was a first of its kind for Zorg village. He said it was a non-profit activity in honour of the late Clive Gobin whose idea was for the holding of a Zorg village day.

Some of the sponsors of the Village Day activities included Takoor Persaud Hardware, Persaud’s Bakaery, Builders Hardware, Derick Gobin Agri Spares, Vicky and Shelly Groceries stall.

The Regional Democratic Council and the Riverstown- Annandale NDC also contributed, along with the “G” Division Police.
After the event ended Sunday night, many residents said it was successful and thanked the Region Two Chairman, a resident of Zorg for staging the Village Day activities for the first time. (Rajendra Prabhulall)