THE Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is sponsoring production of 28 composter bins that will be given to all public primary schools in Georgetown.

JICA Volunteer Takamasa Eda, through Senior Resident Officer Minoru Ito attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also came on board to grant the Solid Waste Management Department a laptop computer and a multifunctional printer.

Department Head Walter Narine, told the Guyana Chronicle at a simple handing- over ceremony that the materials for the bins have already been acquired and production will commence shortly.

“We want to provide them [the schools] with bins; teach them how to do composting, and also give them the composter. So, all they need to do is throw their waste into the composter, give it a gentle turn, and within another six weeks, you have compost. If they do that every day, then they have the compost generating, and there is no cost to the school; we know how cash-strapped the schools are,” Narine had explained to the Chronicle in a previous interview.

The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) will be converting compost waste to fertiliser – an investment valued at $28M that is expected to generate approximately $87M on an annual basis.

“We can take the organic waste and teach them [the students] how to do composting at the school level. Hopefully, this will help them to take the information home and do the same thing there,” Narine had said.

Meanwhile, with the arrival of 10 volunteers from JICA, Guyana continues to benefit from the expertise of senior Japanese professionals. The volunteers will be here until October.
They are working in the Ministries of Agriculture, Education, Communities, and Public Infrastructure as well as with the M&CC, Guyana Water Inc, Guyana Energy Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority, among other entities.

The volunteer programme, through which experts between the ages of 40 and 69 are able to contribute their services, began dispatching senior professional volunteers with a range of skills to Guyana since 2008.

So far, 49 persons have served here with the recent arrivals forming the largest batch to come at the same time.

In 2016, under the auspices of the JICA knowledge co-creation programme, 10 Guyanese were trained in environment conservancy, solid waste management and disaster management.

The volunteer programme is being implemented under the 2005 Agreement of Technical and International Cooperation signed by the Governments of Guyana and Japan.