THE way of life of Guyana’s first peoples must be protected. This is a point that has been echoed over the years through programmes that preserve Indigenous languages and ways of life, and as recently as Thursday evening by the Amerindian Affairs Minister, Pauline Sukhai, who recognised the annual Amerindian Heritage Month celebration as directly preserving and celebrating cultures of Guyana’s Amerindian people.

A people who, through their advocacy and innovation, have brought themselves off of the social and economic fringes of society and centred themselves squarely in the overall conversation on Guyana’s national development.

The need to protect the environment has been a long-time advocacy for the Amerindian people. Globally, the shift into “sustainable development” has struck a balance between human innovation and mastery of nature with adopting healthier practises which have less damaging impacts on the natural world.

It is through this ancient knowledge of nature that Guyana’s Amerindian people were consulted on the 2030 Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) which allows Guyana to leverage its forests as a means to secure international financing, which will, in turn, be used for the social and economic development of Guyanese. The contributions of Guyana’s Amerindian people are invaluable.

During the Cultural Extravaganza hosted at the National Stadium, Providence, President, Dr Irfaan Ali took a moment from his feature address to celebrate the diversity of Guyanese. But there is a need to recognise also that Indigenous people in Guyana and around the world have been disproportionately affected by conquest and the nation state. It is not to say that they are the only group that has been affected, but for the sake of this editorial, the focus is the Amerindian people.

“I reassured every member of our Indigenous community that we stand strongly with you in ensuring that our development path, in ensuring that creating the pathway to prosperity will including you, everyone one of you, every single family, every single region, in our Indigenous community, whether it’s in the riverine area, whether it’s on the hill or in the valley, we will find you, we will work with you and we will move you together as we build a country of prosperity for every single family,” President Ali charged in his feature address.

It was Dr Cheddi Jagan’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government that commenced the hinterland scholarship programme in the early 1960s. Successive governments of Dr Jagan’s party have maintained this programme which has drastically transformed Guyana’s hinterland by providing educational opportunities for Indigenous people to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and social workers, among others, all of which have helped to improve the quality of life of the Amerindian people, blending indigenous, traditional knowledge with contemporary methods.

With thousands of Guyanese trained through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) programme, some Amerindians need to leave the comfort of their communities to study as government has also supported communities like Quatata, Waiakabra, Kabakaburi, Karawab and others with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) facilities, which allow access to online learning from those very hinterland communities, connecting them with the rest of the world.

Naysayers of President Ali’s “One Guyana” vision and action, struggle to find flaws in this plan to improve the lives of all Guyanese. They continue, however, to scrape the bottom while ignoring the significant investments made into every Guyanese located everywhere across Guyana.

The President could not have been any clearer on Thursday in his commitment to Guyana’s Amerindian people to ensure no effort is spared in supporting their education and growth pursuits. The goal, it must be noted, is to bridge the benefit and development gap between the coastland of Guyana and its hinterland, a phenomenon inherited from through the very legacy of conquest addressed earlier in this editorial.

“We will make the investment to give you the bandwidth, to give you online education… every single Amerindian with the qualification that want to be trained as a nurse, as a teacher, as a dental technician, as a medical worker, I am saying to you, we are committing to train every single one of you… we will provide the money and the environment, and we will give you that opportunity,” President Ali said. The rapid transformation of Guyana has to be met, simultaneously, with the growth of our people’s capacities. Guyana’s Indigenous people can rest assured that, as the President also said, there is no effort spared “to secure your rights, to expand your freedom, to ensure you have active participation, [and] to build sustainability in your development plans.” The vision of “One Guyana” becomes more a reality daily.