–Ministers McCoy, Walrond pledge support of government
THE Association of People of African Descent (APAD) was officially launched on Saturday night, with the aim of fostering unity among Afro-Guyanese communities, driving positive social change, and empowering all members to actively participate in shaping Guyana’s future.
According to Andrew Douglas, board member, the association’s mission is to bring together Afro-Guyanese organisations and create a co-operative community.
“We believe that there is power in collective action. We want to promote social change and we want to ensure that all members of our community have the resources and support they need to achieve their goals,” Douglas related.
He went on to say: “We would like to help the government improve the lives of people and their communities, to build this nation and to secure our highest aspiration of oneness in our diversity.”
Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy, said that he would like to see the organisation develop into a full-fledged representative body, making sure that all it sets out to do, it would be able to achieve through the right approaches, such as working with the government.
“The government is a key stakeholder with which any group in society ought to work with, and the government, particularly the type of government that you have, a government that is caring…for the people, understanding,” he said.
He told the organisation that they have a willing partner in the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government.
Minister McCoy said that they must not allow anyone to use them to divide the society, and to create conditions and situations where they would be fighting with, and among, each other.
“We want a Guyana in which every single group will be able to participate equally, comfortably and without the threat over their head of being bombarded or chastised or rejected for their association with any group or anyone,” he posited.
Minister McCoy said the government’s intention is to work with the organisation, and it could look forward to the best efforts to ensure that it achieves its goals.
Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, said that the organisation has extended hands to a government with open doors.
“This government stands to engage with all ethnic groups. You extending your hand shows a changing time of the attitude of our people,” she said.
Minister Walrond related that there is nothing that the organisation will say, do or ask that will be shut down.
“Everything that you say, everything that you represent has merit, has credit. Continue to reach out to the people, their voices should always be the voice that guides you as a leadership,” she related.
