SEVENTY FIVE households of Canal Polder, along the Canal Number Two Conservancy Dam, West Bank Demerara, on Sunday, benefitted from a donation by multi-pronged Trinidadian company, the Junior Sammy Group of Companies Incorporated.
The donation was handed over by Tana Yussuff, Senior Representative of the company’s local affiliate, Junior Sammy Guyana, at the conservancy dam.

According to Yussuff, farmers in the area had highlighted their need for assistance in their recovery efforts, following severe flooding that destroyed farmers’ crops, their livelihood, and a number of appliances and possessions within their households.
“Currently, we are actually assisting the village in cleaning their waterways, since there was flooding recently. So we’ve brought cleaning supplies, diapers, and a few other stuff for them,” she explained.

Chairman of the village, Seelall Shivcharan, expressed sincere gratitude on behalf of himself and the Canal Polder Water Users Association, as well as the villagers, for the ‘timely’ donation, which he says will go a far way in helping the community’s flood-recovery efforts.
“… we are very thankful for this donation. It is timely, because the people on the Conservancy have a lot of water in their yards and some of them, in their houses; so I think this is a good venture. This will help to clean up their surroundings, and the people around here are very thankful,” he expressed.

He reiterated that since the majority of residents on the dam were farmers, the biggest loss faced during the flood was that of their crops, which provided an income for most families and households.
He noted, to the Guyana Chronicle, that the government had reached out to the community with the distribution of a total of eighty-five hampers, but said that the recent donation from the private sector company was still very much needed.

Yogieraj Das, Chairman of the Canal Polder Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), noted that since residents are now trying to piece their lives back together, the donation will greatly assist in sanitising their households before everything is ‘back in order’.
“This community on the conservancy damn was hard hit with the recent flood. Every home suffered in this flood, and now that the water has receded and the residents are trying to put their lives together, bringing back furniture that they took to higher places and so on; cleaning before they put things back in their proper places is very necessary, and the coming of this donation is a fine gesture, because it contains cleaning agents, and people need to clean up their environments now that the water has receded, so they can get their lives back together,” he stated.

He also joined in with the Chairman and other residents in thanking JS Guyana for its generous donation, along with a prominent resident of the Polder, Mallin (only name given.)
“I feel very happy and very proud about [the donation]. Thank you to the donor, whoever remembered this village. Thank you a million times,” the grateful woman gushed.
JS Guyana Inc., in a statement, expressed pride in being able to assist the residents in their relief efforts. It stated that while executing flood relief desilting works in the area, the company was moved by the situation faced by the residents, and felt compelled to help.
The company assured those present that that was not the last of its assistance to disaster-affected citizens of Guyana.