Girls home at Hauraruni, “empowered”

Youth organisation, Empower Guyana Consultancy (EGC) distributed more than 35 hampers and toys to families and children in the Linden-Soesdyke Highway community of Hauraruni recently.

Empower Guyana Consultancy (EGC), which was founded by former Rights of the Child Commission (RCC) CEO Amar Panday, has been involved in numerous outreach programs over the last few months of this year, with the aim of “sustaining a movement of transformation across Guyana”. 

On Friday last, members visited the Hauraruni Girls’ Home. The home caters girls who had to be removed from a regular family setting and would not be able to enjoy a usual Christmas like the average Guyanese child. 

The Big Smith News Watch was on site and spoke to one of the girls from the home about her experience with EGC.  “I [am] always happy when they visit because they would come and do things with us that we don’t get to do or have on a regular basis [because] of where we are so [it’s] always a blessing,” she said.

Immediately after this interaction, the large group then traversed the community of Hauraruni whilst being led by community leader Deoram Timram, and distributed large hampers filled with groceries and essential items to the families that were desperately in need of them for the holiday season. 

Though battered by the rain, the youth ambassadors pushed through and successfully delivered the items to the households that were identified. Nearly 40 of these large hampers were delivered to families across the community.

22 year-old Shinola Hetmeyer, a youth ambassador of the organization, expressed her gratitude for the organization while detailing how elated she has become because of the activities she is constantly involved in through EGC. “I [am blessed] to have the opportunity to reach out to communities in a way that I could not before and effect positive change in people’s lives,” Hetmeyer said. “Since being a part of Empower Guyana… I have been given the chance to help restore hope in humanity for various persons through this group’s outreach activities… I’ve [also] seen various improvements in myself, in terms of public speaking and my ability to interact,” she posited.

Another youth ambassador of the organization, Sussana Augustin, detailed the tremendous impact the group has had on her life and how much of a staple it is becoming in her life. “[The motto] ‘Sustaining a movement of transformation across Guyana’ now lives rent free in my head because that’s who we are and what we do,” she noted. “This organization has allowed me to be myself while learning and helping people from all walks of life… I’m so happy that I’m a part of this organization,” Augustin explained.

Former RCC Chief Executive Officer and now the Founder of EGC Amar Panday expressed his gratitude to the work of the youth ambassadors, the sponsors and everyone else involved to make his dream a blooming reality. “There is a lot of hard work, grit and determination that goes into what we are doing and what he hope to do later on. The young people I have been privileged to work with are dedicated and enthusiastic about our mission here, so it makes it much easier for us to cooperate and ultimately fulfil the goal that we set out to achieve,” Panday highlighted.

When asked how his organization materialized into what it is today, Panday explained that the organization was not something that was thought of overnight and materialized the next morning, but something that has a deeper purpose and meaning behind it all. “The idea for Empower Guyana stems from a recognition and appreciation of the importance of Guyana’s human resource as an indispensable factor for development. The Youth Empowerment facet of Empower Guyana seeks to harness the awesome power of Guyana’s youth and to channel such power for developmental purposes,” Panday detailed. 

The founder of the trifold organization explained the dire need for sponsorship and support from members of civil society so that the work of EGC can move forward and reach higher heights. “This initiative was successful mainly because of the two fundraisers that the youth ambassadors organized executed a few weeks ago… I believe that if more people were to come on board, including businesses and other organizations, Empower Guyana would be able to fulfil its mandate in an even more extensive manner that it has done before,” he said.