A plea for help
A typical scene in Plastic City
A typical scene in Plastic City

– residents of Plastic City ready to relocate but need financing

GAZING into her water-logged, garbage-faeces-strewn surroundings, Pinky Ganga said she is

Amanda Alfredo

ready to pack up and leave but is often faced with the sad reality that the pittance she earns is barely enough to feed her four children.

Ganga is among those living in Plastic City – a constantly flooded, insect-infested squatting settlement situated on Government’s reserve on the West Bank of Demerara. The drug-infested community is not only plagued with a number of social and environmental issues but lacks the most essential necessities – electricity and potable water. According to her, police would raid the area 24/7.

Ronaldo Alfredo

“I living here long now, since I was a small girl growing up,” Ganga murmured. This year marks 23 years since she was brought to the settlement by her parents, and though the living conditions are less than desirable, she said there is not much she can do.

“Me family dem, all of us live right here, meh mother live over deh, my sister live over deh and all a we in de same situation, no one can’t help nobody,” the mother of four said as she pointed to neighbouring shacks erected just over the Sea Defence commonly called the ‘Jetty.’
“It is really hard to know that when you left some days to go work and you come home dem children deh in de water a swim, and when dem tek sick you got to run with dem to de

Pinky Ganga just outside of her one-bedroom shack

hospital,” she added.

Though she has endured a long and hard life, Ganga is hoping that her children would one day have better lives. Ganga is among several persons in the squatting settlement who were offered lands in other areas by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), but due to the lack of finance she, like many others, was left behind.
Her plight is similar to that of 62-year-old Ronaldo Alfredo, a single parent father of three. Alfredo, a former rank of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), who hails from South Rupununi, settled in the area in 1992. With a glow on his face, Alfredo said while most of his family resides in Brazil, he would never forsake his children.

“I just can’t leave them here to punish,” he said as his daughter embraced him.
As his two teenage sons looked on a short distance away puffing away on their cigarettes, the security guard said he too was offered a plot of land in another community but had no money to pay for it.
“I work every day just to survive. It is just enough to make ends meet,” he said. According to him, he works for $5,000 a week but sometimes he gets less.
His eldest child, 22-year-old Amanda Alfredo said life beyond the Sea Defence is simply hard.

“If the rain ain’t fall, we does got to go fetch water, we don’t have electricity and when the high tide come, is the water, garbage and mess, all in one in we house, we don’t have flush toilet round here, is pit toilet,” she posited.
The very outspoken mother of one said for those persons who were unable to purchase their lands, the Government had promised to step in and provide them with houses, but according to her, they are still waiting. “We still waiting…everybody in here glad to move out this place for the sake of their children but…”

Escape
Unlike Ganga and the Alfredos, Stanley Persaud was among those who were able to escape the miseries of Plastic City.
“I use to live here before. I come in here in 1990. Back then there were more than a hundred people living in here but the Government give out lands, so most people move out,” he said.
According to him, as some people move out of the area, others move in, erecting shacks along the Sea Defence in an effort to keep their heads above the rough waters.

Director of CH&PA’s Community Development Department, Gladwin Charles, said the Housing Department has made tremendous strides in relocating the residents of Plastic City by providing them with not only house lots but core houses as well but while some have relocated, others refused to move because of various reasons.
According to him, those reluctant to move had complained that the lands provided were not close enough to their place of work. Pointing to a report which was submitted to the former Minister of Housing Irfaan Ali, Charles said in March 2012, when the Plastic City Relocation Plan was crafted, there was a total of 166 households recorded in the area.

He said during several meetings it was explained that the area did not qualify for regularisation and was environmentally unfit for dwelling, a situation which remains the same today.
In that report, Charles had informed the then Housing Minister that in 2001 Minister Shaik Baksh had offered the squatters an opportunity to move to a Housing Scheme in the region where water supply, roads and electricity are available, and some had expressed their willingness to move.
As a result, the squatters were encouraged to apply for their house lots in order to facilitate the relocation process. By March 2012, only 60 persons had applied.

According to Charles, less than 50 persons were allotted lands in other parts of Region Three. For more than 20 years, squatters have been occupying Plastic City, an area regarded as a Protected Area because of the dense Mangrove Vegetation which aids in protecting the Sea Defence.

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