SOME 63 years ago, Naseer Ahmad was born into the village of Goed Fortuin on the West Bank of Demerara and, in the years he has called Goed Fortuin home, he has become a community pillar. He has played a role in community efforts that have taken place repeatedly and says regardless of the challenges he faces in his personal life, he will continue to strive as a voice for his village.

Like any long-standing member of a close-knit community, Naseer was given the name ‘Bird’. He says The name was perhaps due to the fact that his father worked with birds, and he developed a profound love for them. Naseer was among five siblings, having one brother and three sisters. His upbringing and boyhood days were simple, humble and built around a great sense of community.

Goed Fortuin is a culturally expressive place and is a blend of people from all places, of all races and of all walks of life. Naseer described the community as one where people co-operate and work together in the village’s best interest. Sports was among one of the things that had a great emphasis placed on it because of its positive impact on the youth of the community.

Goed Fortuin’s sports ground was, and still is on occasion, a community gathering place. It was built and has been repaired by the people of the village time and time again. “The centre ground did not have fences before 1992. We put up the fences, the stands and the new pavilion. It is not that I like to be in sports. I like to see young people be out of the streets. In those days, young people used to gamble along street corners and smoke,” Naseer said.

This drive for development and progress, coupled with his love for the arts, pushed Naseer to study architecture. He fell in love with technical drawing while attending West Demerara Secondary School. Naseer became an architect in 1978 at 18.

Although he no longer practices architecture, Naseer still loves the profession and considers it an art form in its own right. Naseer has such a profound love for architecture that he originally wanted to teach the subject to others, saying that, “My hope was to teach architecture in school. But I finished school and I saw a vacancy in the newspapers, and I went for it. And that is what gave me the spinoff.”

Naseer’s love for any and everything creative was ignited in his childhood. His mother, a seamstress, and the girls she worked with taught Naseer how to sew and this knowledge and understanding of angles, cutting and putting pieces together helped Naseer pursue fashion and design.

“I have skills in sewing. My mother had twenty-something girls that would sew with her. And she got old and all the machines were there,” He said. “And I would be around the girls and they show me how to sew. I used my architecture skills and started to design clothes to take to Barbados.”

Today, Naseer is no longer works. He shared that a lot has changed in his life since 2017, when he was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. After suffering a heart attack, Nasser has lived with the subtle but constant fear that another may reoccur. Currently, many things make him anxious and he has lost the drive to participate in certain activities, but talking to people is always welcomed.

“I like when people come and talk to me. It takes the anxiety away from me. It takes the depression away from me,” he said. “If I have something I need to do, I get anxious about it, I have to do it now.” This, however, has not stopped him from striving to see changes done in his community and the next generation.

As an ex-architect, Naseer would like to see better infrastructure implemented in the community. Simple things like better drainage and widened roads are just a few things he says could have a big impact on the village. Going further, he states that one of the things he has always wanted to see is greater emphasis on art. “Once you can draw it, you can build it. I would like to see art taught in school, all the way from kindergarten up,” Naseer stated.

Building a home and life in the same village will create a love for the community and an unbreakable relationship with its people. Naseer believes that implementing a few simple principles and values from childhood is the basis for a good community and the village of Goed Fortuin stands as a testament to that.