THOUGH the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security (MHSSS)’s role and activities have far-reaching and salutary effects on individual citizens, and society as a whole, there is very little direct coverage of it in the media.

It is treated somewhat like the sun, whose beneficent rays are necessary for human survival but are rarely remembered and are often taken for granted by institutions and society alike.
The help and intervention of this MHSSS are invoked in all kinds of human situations, and the officers of the ministry quietly lend their help.

This is not surprising, since the personality of the leader of that Ministry, Dr. Vindhya Persaud, seemes to have imbued the activities of the MHSSS. Dr. Persaud comes from a background of selfless service. Her father was the late Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud, a man of great courage who stood up against State authoritarianism at great risk to his life and limb, and who, over the years, when the country was enveloped in want and hardship and Guyanese people were fleeing, would try to help people’s needs by gathering whatever could be had from friends and chelas. The MHSSS recently displayed an example of that spirit.

A prominent member of society quietly informed the ministry that he knew of a retired Permanent Secretary who lived alone, was in his 90s and barely mobile, and whose pensions were comparatively very small. For example, though he had contributed at the highest level for his National Insurance, his NIS pension was at the lowest level because actual contributions based on the “low” salaries at the time did not warrant him having more than the lowest pension. (At the time the former PS was in service, the Guyana currency was heavy; for example, a new, not second-hand, motorcar could be purchased for four to five thousand Guyana dollars).

The MHSSS contacted the retiree by telephone and offered help he may have required. The retiree, coming from that culture where one tried to live within his means and never felt that one’s problems should be projected to anyone else, even the State, thanked MHSSS, and assured them that he was managing, and did not require any assistance at the moment. From its experience and sensitivity, the ministry presented the retiree with a hamper of foodstuff when delivering his Old Age Pension book as a shut-in. The retiree welcomed the unexpected and useful gift, and was very grateful.

The ministry’s work and involvement are in such areas as digital transformation, Old Age Pensions, gender-based violence, persons living with disabilities, trafficking in persons, shelter for the homeless, supplying meals for pavement dwellers and those who could not or would not be accommodated in shelters, helping in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer and distributing grants from time to time to certain vulnerable categories of persons.

In other words, the mandate of the ministry is to protect and help the most vulnerable groups of the Guyanese population. Each area of the ministry’s work entails a plethora of activities, and determining the details would require much space and time.
Foreign agencies often seem to be more cognisant of the social and humanitarian work of the MHSSS than many of our local institutions.

The Central Government, however, always complimented the work of the MHSSS as, for example, when Dr. Ashni Singh was recently signing the Can$120 million sovereign loan to further boost support for vulnerable groups: “We have retained,” said Dr. Singh, “at the highest level of our priorities, the objective of ensuring the most vulnerable in our society experience the physical and tangible benefits, including and in particular in relation to the delivery of social services.”