Economic advancement remains the focus for the women living in the small but cohesive village of Moblissa, located on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway, Region Ten and approximately ten minutes away from the mining town of Linden.

This was emphasized when Vice President and Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs Sydney Allicock and team visited the village last weekend and made a timely donation of sewing equipment including a singer sewing machine and fabric.

An ecstatic Carmelita Rutherford described the donation as enormous since the women there will now be better able to put their sewing skills into practice thus putting money in their pockets.

Rutherford explained that every effort is being made to ensure the sewing group becomes an economically viable establishment.

She explained that a bale of cloth, which was donated a few years ago, had brought with it the hope of expanding since out of that bale of cloth the women were able to produce and market table cloth, hand towels and pillow cases and other work.

However, she explained that when they were out of sewing material they were almost back to where they began.

An adamant Rutherford reminded that fortitude overcomes all challenges, including the fact that they have to take on dual roles owing to the absence of the men folk who are seeking employment opportunities elsewhere.

She said “the contribution that we receive is a big help because in Moblissa we don’t really have people with jobs; so if we can sew school shirts for the children, we sell them at a lower price than Linden, and it will be a real relief to the parents.”

Rutherford further explained that plans are also in train to assist the elderly, since some of them are visually impaired.

“…we talked among ourselves in the group that once we get these things sell we can like give them a hamper for the holidays to just make their holidays a little more nice.”

Coleen Williams, another group member, said the donation will result in progress since “we get we own material, we own machine, we own thread so we don’t have to go out to Linden and buy these things; so we will try and make uniform for our children and so on.”

Annie Dey, a seamstress for some time now, believes working together will yield positive results for the group and by extension the village economy.

“We will go there and search market and see if we get our produce sell and we will continue investing and investing,” Dey assured.

Miister Allicock made good on a promise to the thriving Women’s Group there after they had highlighted some challenges they faced in acquiring materials and other much needed equipment.

The Minister commended members of the group who assembled at the Moblissa Health Center to receive items for the group for their passion demonstrated and added that this passion is very encouraging to his Ministry.

The Minister also reminded that the current Government is working assiduously to ensure there is economic development within communities, including empowering the women folk.

“We have a desire for economic drive within communities and also the importance of women in development, women in leadership roles we have decided to start to give support to you the women here in this community.

“I’m happy to say that we have been able to meet some of the request you have made, we have been able to provide more than eighty percent of that request for the women’s group, we have a sewing machine for you, cloth, thread, needles, scissors among others,” the Minister said.

“I would like to hand this over to you as a beginning to your greater dreams and I am happy that you can come here which means that you are really serious and that’s what we are looking for, we are looking for the opportunity that you can be able to allow yourselves to become highly professional in what you do and since you have shown the interest, the Ministry and the Government would support,” was the assurance given by the Indigenous Affairs Minister.

Stressing the need to ensure there is accountability, Minister Allicock said “it is the delivery of service to your community to your people and the upliftment of your skills individually. This is not only for this community but for all of the communities across Guyana.”

Speaking on the recent revelations in the Auditor General’s 2015 report, the Vice President said “it has been a matter of concern for a very long time and we are doing all we can to make the correction so that we can have proper recording of the spending of taxpayer’s money and the spending of monies coming into our coffers because if we do not account or cannot account for such matters then our businesses could be in jeopardy; so for us we need first of all from the Ministry to correct whatever issues there may be in the area of accounting.”

The Minister proposed additional training for staff which he said will ensure the success of this process which will ensure the Ministry moving forward unhindered.

According to the Vice President, the United Nations Development Program UNDP has indicated its willingness to support such an undertaking while further revealing that “Mr. Anand Goolsarran who is a well-known figure and who they feel very strongly could give us that guidance and training to correct our weaknesses.”

Goolsarran will be contracted until January and Minister Allicock is optimistic that his stint at the Ministry will yield resounding success.