BY PETER HAYNES

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6.

At the Cave Hill, Barbados campus of the University of the West Indies, 40 young Guyanese students, being very patriotic towards their homeland, got together one year ago to form the Guyana Students Association (GUY-SA) Cave Hill, U.W.I. From its inception, this campus has attracted Guyanese, and today holding at roughly the level experienced in 1963 when two Guyanese joined the charter student body of 118 full and part-time enrollees.
One of the major objectives of the members of GUY-SA Cave Hill is to identify with each other and as a group on the campus, and it could be attributed to their being Guyanese that even though few in number, these students have made an impact on the Campus in the group’s inaugural year.

Rather than categorizing these young people as forming a chapter of the “Guyana Diaspora” on the campus, and thereby attributing to them the baggage currently being aired by various expatriate Guyanese groups, we should note that such a label would also be inappropriate because these students did not “scatter from their homeland” or go to Barbados “in search of citizenship or jobs”, as essentially the case with the “Guyana Diaspora” in North America.
Cave Hill’s Guyanese, ever since the establishment of the Campus in Barbados in 1963, have chosen to study there to enhance their education and skills, and most of them have then returned home to make their contributions to the development of Guyana – an important distinction.

One of the most commendable aspects of the formation of GUY-SA at Cave Hill is that these students have recognized the need to band together in a patriotic and national manner to deal with issues common to students at Cave Hill. Also noteworthy about the formation of this organization is that no other group of Guyanese students at Cave Hill has even formed a national Association that has been officially recognized as such by the administration and other student groups.

Perhaps this is due to the current existence of a critical mass of Guyanese on this campus, because many of the issues that Guyanese students faced when the campus was created are still challenging the current Guyanese student population – including negative treatment by members of the administration.

When the campus started in temporary quarters at the Trade Fair Site over 50 years ago, the Guyanese and students from the Caribbean countries were deemed “Rif Raff” by members of the local population, and at that time, the ‘foreign’ students decided to accept the moniker, generously extending to those Barbadians who associated with them the title of ‘Honorable Rif Raff.” At the time, the Rif Raff not only provided each other opportunities to socialize but also resolves to be stellar in their performance, and interestingly, in the first graduating class at Cave Hill, a Guyanese was the “Student of the Year”, based on academics, and many other Rif Raffs achieved high academic honors.

To mark the first Anniversary of GUY-SA, a number of events were staged, including a Motivational Forum, with Guyana’s Consul General, Ms. Cita Pilgrim, delivering an address on “opportunities in the Land of Many Waters.” Ms. Pilgrim reminded the members of GUY-SA that they were young ambassadors of their country, and that by showcasing Guyana’s culture they were educating others about their country.

She stressed that Guyana had vast undeveloped land masses and that agriculture would continue to be a major contributor to the economy. She noted that it is a well-established fact that for Guyana to benefit in a significant way from the development of its agriculture sector, there needed to be greater concentration on the development of new value-added products to boost the current revenue from the primary product, and to develop further agro-processing aspects of the industry.

The Consul General further stated that an area in which the Guyana Government had been forging ahead was the development of a green economy: “We have agreements with a number of international partners such as The Netherlands, Norway, and Germany, for assistance in the protection and the sustainable development of our vast natural resources.
“A pivotal arm of the greening process is of course, the sustainable development of renewable sources of energy. Our numerous rivers provide us with enormous potential for hydropower development.”

She also pointed out that the Guyana Government was keenly aware that measures had been taken to reduce the high level of youth unemployment, which stood at 40%, for both qualified and unqualified young people, and recognized that it must provide an enabling environment for youth employment and youth entrepreneurship. Thus, the GUY-SA students were of tremendous interest to the government, and to her consulate, who were hoping that they would return home to share the benefits of their education, and not let their mother country continue losing young talent to foreign lands.

In closing, Ms. Pilgrim told the Guyanese students that their country was poised for major economic and industrial transformation. “With strong vision, imagination, courage and knowledge, this can happen. I encourage you as future leaders to get on board and make your valuable contributions to the process.”
GUY-SA has made a start by demonstrating the path that Guyanese who study abroad can follow to truly lead our country’s future successes.