SOMETIMES it takes a ‘leap of faith’ to get a person over a hurdle. The term is often invoked when something is intangible or incapable of being proven and all that is left is for a person to believe and trust that it is possible to achieve.

I was thinking about a ‘leap of faith’ while reflecting on Guyana’s ‘Diaspora Job Fair’ which was held in New York City this weekend. It turns out that the fair was held just before this week’s 4th anniversary of the PPP/C government in power and the Presidency of Dr. Irfaan Ali.

In villages up and down this country, an estimated half a million Guyanese have said goodbye to families, friends, neighbourhoods and members of thriving communities between the late 1970s and the early 2000s. The majority of those who left, some 90 per cent, had a tertiary education.

What began as a trickle eventually turned into a full-out brain drain when Forbes Burnham’s mind and the PNC’s policies descended into a heap of madness. What will it take to convince Guyana’s sons and daughters in the diaspora to reverse the trend, and turn Guyana’s brain drain into a brain gain?

Will it take a ‘leap of faith’ or will empirical evidence sway their decision? For me, it was a bit of both. I did weigh the pros and cons and measured the push and pull factors before filing my re-migration papers earlier this year; before purchasing a property and building a home; and before seeking employment and landing a job that I really enjoy.

I don’t regret my decision even though a cynical person might chime in with a ‘not yet.’ I didn’t lose sleep when the side view mirrors of my car were stolen and I had to fork over GY$30,000 to replace them. No one warned me it was going to happen and that I should engrave my license plate number on mirrors, windows, windshields and headlamps. Just last year my son had the catalytic converter on his car swiped in a matter of minutes. That’s in the supposedly “safe city” of Brampton, Canada. Theft insurance claims in Canada ran up to a staggering $1.3 billion in 2023.

I was annoyed that I had to drive without the mirrors for a few weeks while a dealership sourced new ones. I am sitting at a very comfortable desk in a remote village writing my column with access to the internet. It is so stable I can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime on my television without buffering.

I get frustrated – perhaps angry – whenever I take the water taxi and see plastic bottles and all kinds of unrecognisable trash floating in the beautiful Demerara River. I wish people would use the trash bins instead, but the PNC-run City Council is derelict in attending to the basic and urgent task of keeping Georgetown clean and safe.

My most frustrating experience was opening a bank account, but once I got that out of the way, I could now withdraw cash and pay for purchases using my VISA card. Just to be clear, I am not talking about purchases at Parika or Leonora markets.

Over the last few weeks, I have spent countless hours as part of my job preparing reports on the progress that the PPP/C made in all 17 sectors between August 2023 and August 2024. I looked at Amerindian Development, Water, Agriculture, Health, Education, Natural Resources, Public Services, etc. and realised that the achievements are indeed mind-boggling. In all my adult life I have never seen ministers and civil servants work this hard serving the people that elected them.

Migration is a fact of life. Thousands of people have been migrating from North America and Europe to countries like Malaysia and Turkey and one can find videos of them “showing off” their new homes and neighbourhoods on YouTube. The fact of the matter is that millions of people around the world are on the move, mostly for economic reasons.

In 2020 there were an estimated 281 million international migrants globally. That number amounts to about 3.6 per cent of the global population. In 1990 the number of migrants was 153 million, and in 1970, it hovered at around 94 million.

The recent United Nations World Migration Report noted that international migrants remitted US$128 billion to their families and communities in their home countries in the year 2000. Twenty-two years later, that amount shot up to US$831 billion.

There are many compelling reasons why a Guyanese who is highly trained and qualified might find work life and leisure in Guyana a whole lot better than it is for him and his family in America, Canada or the U.K. They can take comfort in the fact that thousands of individuals who had left Guyana for whatever reason have already returned and are settled, happy and thriving.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.