convenience and good

micevan1l6

In a quest to ensure that Guyanese know their rights in order to improve their standard of living, the Guyana Media Proprietors’ Association Inc. (GMPA) in association with the European Union (EU) recently spearheaded very revealing national outreach activities.The strategic undertaking was designed to focus on a number of issues including factors that affect the Constitution and the fact that the people, the stakeholders with the most collective power, are severely handicapped in the decision making processes that affect their livelihood.The fourth and final outreach was held in Linden, last Tuesday, under the theme ‘Fundamentals to Community and National Interests – Know your Right’.Mr Lincoln Lewis makes a point.Hosted at the Edgar Benjamin Conference Centre, the session took on the form of a dinner workshop, and like previous sessions, it primarily targeted community leaders in hope that they would spread the word to others.The facilitators included Mr. Charles Griffith, GMPA’s Special Projects Director and former Associate Professor in Bioengineering and Biotechnology at the Centre of Advanced Studies, Mexico City, Mexico and Local Trade Union Expert, Mr. Lincoln Lewis.Together they addressed issues such as Public Consultation and Engagement as well as Election Preparedness as integral components of the EU-funded project entitled ‘Enabling the Media to promote Human Rights and Democratic Reforms in Guyana’.The GMPA approached the referenced components of the EU mandates as providing supplemental tools to the previous and extensive election preparedness education programme conducted by the Guyana Elections Commission in 2011.This was done by designing a public out-reach programme to fill an obvious void in the consciousness of a significant percentage of Guyanese. It is the view of the GMPA that “it is well known that certain aspects of civics education and especially those that could affect the improvement in standard of living to include improvement of employee/employer/ state relationship and specifically pertaining to ‘Know your rights’ are non-existent in Guyana.”And so in an effort to empower Guyanese with appropriate tools that could be utilised in debates, discussions and other decision-making processes that could affect livelihood, participants were selected to form a permanent core-foundation of a communication network.Through this network GMPA could interact with the various local and regional communities on matters of their interests, needs, concerns, convenience and good, wrapped in evolving sound democratic practices attached to the rule of law and the Constitution of Guyana.In addition to discussions about the Labour Act, the facilitators also sought to highlight the role of the media and its special emphasis on its relationship with the people. Efforts were also made to highlight ways to resolve the racial problems in Guyana.“The specific information presented to the participants may be considered a sample of the necessary tools to be shared with their respective communities, in order that they could engage in the broad based participatory democratic decision making process in an effective and constructive manner,” explained GMPA’s Griffith.He noted that it is hoped that the information provided by the workshop will empower the community participants to facilitate clear but critical thinking dialogue or debate among community groups.This, according to the GMPA, would fill the void in the Guyanese consciousness that can cogently effect the demands for accountability, timely responsiveness, good governance and transparency from elected representatives, relative to those circumstances that directly affect their livelihood.The strategic undertaking was introduced at the University of Guyana’s Tain, Berbice Campus and saw participation from individuals of both Regions Five and Six. There was also a similar session at the University’s Turkeyen Campus catering to participants of Region Four while another at the Double Day Hotel, Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, sought to sensitise persons of Regions Two and Three.