A Valentine’s Day pageant was organised at the Bartica Secondary School a few days ago that sought to incorporate aspects of healthy living and care for the environment.

“This touched me because we have been pushing at the municipality for people to change the way the think and treat the environment,” Mayor of Bartica Gifford Marshall told this publication.

He is hoping that more events like these would be organised so that a transformation can come about.
“To see that they were able to incorporate that aspect of healthy living, that aspect of a better environment, a better individual; it was just mind-blowing for me and the councillors. If we have more events like these, it can definitely continue the transformation that we want to see in Bartica,” Marshall expressed.

Bartica is known for some time now as the gateway to the interior and while there is much wealth associated with this term, Marshall pointed out how a lot of destruction to the environment is also associated.
“We would have also seen over the decades that people have been abandoning their farms and pursuing the mining industry, but when you fly over Bartica, there is major discolouration in our rivers, the creeks; there’s deforestation in some places,” Marshall said.
Therefore, a new mindset is needed so that people can begin caring more for the environment.
“It’s a new mindset, a new paradigm shift, where we need people to understand not to only take good care of themselves, but to care for the environment, and the environment is God’s gift to us,” Marshall expressed.