— Minister Yearwood preaches unity at Linden’s flag-raising ceremony

MERE minutes before midnight on Friday, Lindeners were reminded by Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Valerie Patterson-Yearwood that the journey to the good life, as promised by the Coalition Government, continues and urged Lindeners to travel that journey together by embracing and supporting the Coalition Government.

Lindeners ushered in Guyana’s 52nd Independence anniversary with lots of culture as iridescent national colours worn by the dozens of children who sang, danced and dramatised various elements of culture to the packed audience. The golden arrowhead flew high and the feeling of patriotism was displayed in every applause and scream from onlookers. Attending the flag-raising ceremony in Linden were also Minister within the Ministry of Natural resources, Simona Broomes; Regional Chairman, Renis Morian; Mayor of Linden Waneka Arindell, and several other regional and municipal officials.

In the feature address, Minister Yearwood preached the importance of unification for the materialisation of the good life before listing several achievements of the three-year-old government.
As Lindeners voted solidly in 2015, Yearwood urged all to continue embracing and cooperating with their elected representatives who are working overtime for the realisation of a better life.

“Unless we embrace, unless we cooperate, we cannot win… as long as we travel together, we will make our journey a beautiful one. Linden, there is a beautiful journey ahead of us; Region 10, there is a beautiful journey ahead of us, but we have to learn to travel together,” Yearwood urged.

She said the good life was promised but it was not promised to be achieved in the first-term, but with the speed the coalition is going, this will definitely be realised, even though she warned that the journey will not be an easy one.

“I can say as a Minister of this Government, I am happy to say that we have achieved much… a good life is about removing inequalities and providing opportunities for every citizen to be the best he or she can be; this is what our government has set out to achieve.”

ACHIEVEMENTS
The minister then pronounced on the plethora of achievements within the last three years, not only for Linden but the entire country. In the area of education, all of the teachers in Linden are trained. This is part of the countrywide 1000 teachers who were trained over the last three years.

The government has also set out to improve literacy with the establishment of several literacy hubs. Several Region 10 schools are benefiting from the government’s hot meal programme which has been extended from 110 to 172 schools benefiting 23,392 students. Laptop computers were also distributed to teachers and according to the minister, all secondary schools across Guyana are equipped with computer laboratories.

Patterson also touched on the empowerment of Lindeners through entrepreneurship with the establishment of the Linden Enterprise Network. Within the three years, minimum wage, threshold and Old Age Pension have seen tremendous increases while VAT has decreased. Lindeners will also see the imminent development of the Mackenzie and Wismar waterfront and the community of Bamia will also see the construction of a new primary and secondary schools.

With all of these achievements highlighted, Yearwood said Lindeners should solidly decide on only a way forward.
“Having journeyed together, having making that progress together, we must decide that we must not go back,” she said. Lindeners then witnessed the hoisting of the Golden Arrowhead while Minister Simona Broomes inspected the guard of honour and road parade by the Joint Services.