“Our planet is filled with heroes, young and old, rich and poor, man, woman of different colours, shapes and sizes. We are one great tapestry. Each person has a hidden hero within; you just have to look inside you and search it in your heart, and be the hero to the next one in need. So to each and every person inside in this theatre, and for those who are watching at home, the hero in you is waiting to be unleashed. Serve, serve well, serve others above yourself and be happy to serve.

Efren Penaflorida

As I always tell my co-volunteers…you are the change that you dream, and I am the change that I dream and, collectively, we are the change that his world needs to be.”

– Efren Penaflorida: CNN Hero of the Year, 2009.
“I would have assumed that a sense of self-respect and pride in my work would have ensured that the city did not deteriorate to the state that it is currently in.”

– Keith Burrowes on the occasion of the handing-over of the Report of the Burrowes Commission of Inquiries to the Minister of Local Government at the Hotel Tower.

A sense of self-respect and pride in his work, plus a sense of social justice and equity in the family of humanity, with an overarching patriotism, among a plethora of positive attributes, define the hero in Keith Burrowes, Chairman of the Guyana National Newspapers Ltd (GNNL), Head of the Health Sector Development Unit (HSDU), General-Manager of the Guyana National Co-operative Bank (GNCB), among a multiplicity of other caps that he wears, and wears with dignity and pride in achievement, pursuing his various areas of endeavour with a sense of self-respect, the lack of which he deplores with a passion.

Keith Burrowes

It is rarely that one sees him lose control of his equable temperament, but that control slipped at the Hotel Tower that day as he took to task those who had allowed Guyana’s once beautiful and pristine capital city to decay into a morass of filth and lawlessness, and the Georgetown municipality to descend into a pit of fraudulent and criminal activities, even while they go jaunting off on pleasure trips around the globe several times per year.

Because of that absolute commitment to give of his very best he works indefatigably during weekends, holidays – from dayclean to crazy hours in the evening, and because he is so absolutely committed to getting the job done, he surrounds himself with support staff whom he can be assured will be accessible to him at a moment’s notice.

I hate housework with a passion, and one Sunday I resignedly got down to tackling the mountains of document stacked in my bedroom and spare room, when I got a call to reach chronicle’s Chairman urgently at his office at the HSDU headquarters.

There I met young GNCB officer, Robert Arjoon with his newly-wed wife. Like me, Robert had dropped everything to attend his boss. We were both amusedly reflecting that Keith Burrowes had so much energy, drive, and commitment to a work ethic that he did not even consider the limitations of lesser mortals; but, as Robert said, he was such an absolutely nice person that one did not mind when he requests one’s presence – to undertake whatever task or for whatever reason, even though he is such a perfectionist that he sometimes demand more than someone thinks that they are capable of delivering.

Strangely enough, his expectations of the best drive his associates and junior staff to strive for optimum achievement in the tasks that they are assigned.

His generosity knows no bounds. He has access to the best doctors in the Georgetown hospital but when I was not feeling well once he send me to a specialist for all kinds of tests that I did not need, but which he insisted on having done. Except for high cholesterol levels, which is stress-related and therefore beyond my control, I got a clean bill of health, which eliminated my worrying unnecessarily, so he secured my peace of mind – with regards my health.

But that is the mark of the man. A very caring person, who could take time out of his busy schedule to show concern, and act upon that concern for someone whom he knows has no support system, a man who could take time out to make a child happy, even when he has such a killing work schedule that his own health is jeopardized.

Dharamkumar Seeraj, General-Secretary of the Guyana Rice Producers’ Association (RPA), is one of the many persons who feel Keith Burrowes is an exceptional human being; and he once told me that, when the RPA was subsisting with extremely meagre resources, it was Keith Burrowes, through the Building Community Capacity Project (BCCP) funded by CIDA, who facilitated assistance to the RPA to upgrade its operational capacity. Sadly, through fire in Regent Street caused by protestors, all the equipment was lost. However, Keith Burrowes continued to help to develop the RPA’s capabilities of the RPA to assist farmers in the country.

The many good deeds of Keith Burrowes would fill volumes but, suffice it to say that we do not need to look at CNN to observe heroes at work, we have many right here in our own country – outstanding Guyanese men and women who live their lives well and full, not merely to enhance their own lifestyles and enjoy their own lives, but who serve their fellow humans with dedication and compassion, because the soul of a hero resides within their quintessential beings.