PRESIDENT, Dr. Irfaan Ali, on Wednesday, assured citizens that he will work relentlessly with all villages to ensure they overcome their challenges and achieve prosperity.
The Head of State made this commitment during his remarks at the Hopetown Soiree, West Coast Berbice.

He said: “I want to assure you that I will work relentlessly with every village to ensure we overcome every challenge to ensure we build a country and we build societies and villages in which prosperity will be the friend of every home.”
Dr. Ali added that this society must be one in which every child must aspire to be the best they can be, and have access to the best possible education, and where every citizen must have access to the best possible healthcare.
“This is what our ancestors would want; they would want nothing less. They would want to know that those who they have left are enjoying a quality of life and are benefitting from a quality of life in which their sacrifices, their pains and their sorrows and their spirit would be able to celebrate wherever they are,” President Ali said.

Praising the celebrations, Dr. Ali said that the government will begin the preparation to build out the infrastructure to celebrate a national cultural festival in the village for next year’s Emancipation observances.
“It will be next year on a Friday, a Saturday and a Sunday, and we will dedicate that weekend to the celebration of freedom, celebration of strength, celebration of resilience in this beautiful village of Hopetown,” he said.

Against this backdrop, Dr. Ali expressed pride and hope in the young Afro-Guyanese keeping the celebrations alive. He said that in almost every village in every region this year, Emancipation Day is being celebrated in a big way.
Reflecting on the village movement started by the ancestors, he said that the villages established by African Guyanese were much more than residential areas but were vibrant multifunctional spaces that served the heart of economic, social and cultural life.
This, he said, is the theme through which the celebration for next year must be built upon.

“However, as we celebrate these traditions, we must also reflect on the evolving nature of our villages, the role they play in our lives in a rapidly changing world, our villages must not be consigned to becoming relics of the past, they must be infused with the necessary energy and spirit to become dynamic entities that must adapt to new challenges and overcome old challenges,” President Ali added.