(caribbeanworldnews.com)

Guyana’s first president, Arthur Raymond Chung, has died. He was 90 years old.

A statement from Guyana’s Office of the President said he had been ‘ailing for some weeks now.’

Chung, a former high court judge, served as president from 1970 to 1980, when the office changed from one that was largely ceremonial to one which held executive power.

After his retirement, he withdrew from the national spotlight, dividing his time between England and Guyana.

Chung was also the first Guyanese president of Chinese descent.

QUEENS, NY- The 2nd Annual Friends & RPCVs of Guyana Fundraiser, (http://guyfrog.org) will be held on Friday, July 18th at 8:00 pm to Midnight. The fundraiser will be hosted at Liberty Express Restaurant & Bar, 120-12 Liberty Ave, South Richmond Hill, Queens, NY.  A raffle will be held during the event, which will include prizes with all proceeds going to the organization. The event will be featuring reggae, soca and chutney music from DJ Sparber.

Friends and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Guyana (FROG) was created in 2007 as a non-profit organization that connected former RPCVs with each other, with the greater development community and with new opportunities. To date, over 470 Volunteers have assisted in the areas of health, education, community development and information technology in the small South American country. Today, FROG strives to build on the work done while Volunteers and continue helping Guyana.

“As a majority of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers will tell you, the desire to continue working towards the development of those in need remains strong long after their service is complete,” says FROG Chairman Timothy Delaney, RPCV Guyana 2003-2006. This desire can especially be seen in the many men and women who had the opportunity to live and work in Guyana through Peace Corps.

Earnings from the event will help the organization fund projects in Guyana through groups such as Peace Corps, volunteer agencies, Guyanese non-profits, and other organizations working towards development in Guyana. At this time FROG depends entirely on funding from events such as this one, and other grassroots sources.

(via caribbeannetnews.com/)

 Guyana’s ministry of health has called on residents to remain alert as a result of 12 confirmed cases of dengue fever in region nine, Lethem, close to the Guyana-Brazil border.

Health minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said over the past month there have been a number of reported cases of fever in the region nine area.

“Over the last four weeks the Ministry has noted the increase of reported fever cases from Region 9, especially Lethem, and investigation revealed that these cases were not due to malaria. A test for dengue fever confirmed that some 12 cases were as a result of recent infection with the dengue virus and were among persons in and around Lethem,” the minister said.

The minister added that cases occur sporadically in Georgetown and all the coastal regions but more so in the Lethem area of Region 9 and the public has been advised that care must be taken to avoid mosquito bites.

“The Ministry is recommending the use of mosquito nets and, if possible, insecticide treated nets must be used, especially by pregnant women and children under 5 years. Everyone should sleep under a net,” a release from the health ministry outlined.

According to health officials, the use of insect repellents can prevent mosquito bites if used as recommended and residents are being urged to use protective clothing, especially while being outdoors at night, and to avoid dark colours since they attract mosquitoes.

(via stabroeknews.com)

Guyana is seeking further assistance from the Indian Government in such areas as training, bio-fuel and agricultural development, food security and health and the two have begun crafting their work programme for bilateral co-operation over the next two years.

The two sides met yesterday for the fourth Session of the Guyana–India joint commission at the Ministry of Foreign Trade boardroom. Declaring the session open, Foreign Trade Minister Dr. Henry Jeffrey and head of the Indian Delegation, Minister of State, Ministry of External Affairs, Anand Sharma commented on the good relations existing between the two countries. Indian High Commissioner S.K. Mandal was also part of the delegation.

Sharma said the session would also be used to review the state of engagement between the two countries and noted that it would cover areas of interest in which Guyana could share India’s expertise.

He said both sides would also consolidate their commitments.

(via ap.google.com)

Guyana is tackling the soaring price of food in markets by sending citizens to their gardens to grow their own.

President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday the government would give seeds — mostly rice — in rural communities, hoping that people will sow them on idle land and in gardens in the small South American nation.

“I don’t want to say that everyone should become a farmer because not everyone is cut out for that, but when the economics are right you can do anything,” said Jagdeo, who did not reveal the cost of the program.

Indian communities would get seeds for a special variety of rice suitable for the hilly communities where many life.

Isolated protests have broken out over rising food costs in Guyana, where chicken costs 50 percent more than it did last year. Rice prices have risen 80 percent. U.N. officials have expressed alarm about food price rises worldwide.

(via wdpusa.org)

On Friday, March 7, 2008, the worshipping community came together in large numbers to pray for and with the women of Guyana. Though late winter storms led to the postponement of some services, WDP 2008 was highly successful.

…

Guyana this year, 2008, is a country on the brink of chaos and anarchy as its inhabitants, especially the voiceless working poor, live in constant fear of violence from criminals who kill, maim and destroy with impunity as they walk and stalk the land at will. The institutional forces of law and order visibly appear incapable of dealing with heavily armed and highly trained criminals and bands of criminals who are intent on creating mayhem in the society.

Within the past three weeks, 20 civilians, one soldier and three policemen have been killed. In the early hours of the morning of January 26, a band of about 20 heavily armed gunmen in execution style slaughtered 11 residents, including five children, in their homes in therural coastal village of Lusignan on the East Coast of Demerara, and injured several others. A day or two earlier, a young soldier of the Guyana Defense Force (the Army) was killed in an encounter between the army and criminals in Buxton, the village that borders Lusignan. Then, on the evening of February 16, right across on the western side of the country in the interior mining township of Bartica in the County of Essequibo, a band, reportedly of about the same number and armed in the same way as in the previous slaughter at Lusignan, invaded and rampaged the township unhindered, and brutally slaughtered 13 persons including three policemen in the Police Station and injured several others.

“Living in a society of terrifying unknown,no one knows what will happen next or to whom it will happen or where it will happen,” was the saddened cry of someone writing to one of the national papers. The people pray silently and openly for relief from the violence and other misdeeds of “man’s inhumanity to man” and the resulting conditions that degrade the sanctity of human life and human living.

Please intensify your prayers with and for the traumatized people of these communities and of all Guyana for God’s wisdom to provide new understanding to those with the responsibility to find effective ways to urgently and quickly bring relief from the heavy burden of the current evils that beset the citizens of Guyana. Prayer has become more desperately needed not only on March 7th, World Day of Prayer, but ongoing, for as long as possible, until peace, harmony and security are restored to this once beautiful Guyana. “When all voices are joined together in one united voice, what a powerful voice it will be?” Please help the people of Guyana by raising your voices in prayer with them and for them in their pleas to the Most High for relief, even if such relief resides in miracles.

Guyana RPCV, Brian Reeves, can be seen in a close-up of the upcoming movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” He’s actually the second Guyana RPCV that I’m aware of that has been in a movie. A former PC Suriname staff member has actually won an Oscar for his work in an animation during the 70’s.

Cool stuff, who knew we has such famous RPCVs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yBhl1_eTPM

For more info on CARIFESTA (August 22 to 31, 2008), take a look here.

(via travel.timesonline.co.uk)

Before I discovered Guyana, flying over jungle countries used to depress the hell out of me. It’s always fine while you’re actually on the ground, tunnelling among the lush green caverns of the forest floor.

Down there, you can never experience more than the explosion of life, the sensory overload, which is evident within a few metres of you.

Watching a giant morpho butterfly flitting in the dappled sunlight like an electric-blue handkerchief; being hosed down with wee by a churlish howler monkey; happening across a tiny frog carrying its tadpoles to a bijou pond in a treetop flower… these countless small miracles wrap you up in the wonder of the jungle, and it’s easy to convince yourself that everything is well with the world.

Get yourself up in a flying machine, though, and it’s a different story. Now, you can see the wider truth – that some of the most famous and important jungle reserves in the world are actually smaller than an average-sized city.

Their dwindling islands of forest are surrounded by fields, plantations or burnt and barren land, and logging roads penetrate deep into their recesses. Guyana is very different from that, however. A nation the size of Great Britain, its rainforest remains 85% untouched, and you can fly for several hours and see no roads at all, only rivers, glaring up like serpentine mirrors as the sun flashes across them.

Forest, forest, forest, in every direction, and not a sign of the country’s 750,000 people – because they mostly live in and around the drowsy coastal capital of Georgetown.

I’ve spent nearly two years of my life in rainforests, including time on every continent that has them, but I’ve never experienced one so benign as this – so free from plants that want to rip your clothes off, bugs that want to eat you and tropical diseases that make you spend your entire stay hovering over a long-drop toilet.

That said, I did get bitten by a vampire bat, stung by a bullet ant and shocked by a 200-volt electric eel. But it was still heaven.

For Guyana’s lucky few visitors, the excursion into rainforest paradise usually begins on the Upper Essequibo River, at the Iwokrama reservation, just a few hours south of Georgetown. There is an international conservation centre here, with a gaggle of tourist lodges, and its river journeys offer world-beating opportunities to see jaguars, primates and giant 20ft anacondas.

I received this from the folks at culturecrossing.net

Hope you are well. I just came across your blog on Guyana. Great stuff! I am writing to you because my partner and I are launching a website that will be populated with cross-cultural information about every country in the world. We will be looking to the web community to help do this with all the information being available for free. I was wondering if you may be able to help us out with the Guyana pages. We would love your input. Let me know if you would be open to this and I’ll send along a brief questionnaire. Please also feel free to check out the website, become a member (it’s free!) and add to the guide.

culture-crossing-questionnaire.doc