M&CC looking to relocate Industrial Site Day Care – Mayor

…Charlestown Centre closed

The Georgetown City Council is looking at the possibility of relocating its Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown Daycare Centre due to location issues according to Mayor Patricia Chase Green. In addition, the Charlestown Centre has shut its doors because of the poor condition of the building.

“We are looking at whether the Industrial Site Daycare Centre was properly placed because of all of the factories that surround there. So maybe in our 2018 budget we will probably look at relocating that Industrial Site day care because of its location,” she told Guyana Times.
“You have all sorts of manufacturing companies there while we may not have no study on it but because of what is being manufactured around there we don’t know what the long-term effects might have been or would be to those young people,” Mayor Chase Green added.
She noted that the centre is possibly the only one located in an industrial complex. She added that when the idea was conceived and that location identified, the area was less industrialised and now that it has grown, the environmental and health implications must be taken into consideration.
Chase Green explained that the City cannot afford that relocation in its current financial state but did commit to have it addressed as soon as possible.
Town Clerk Royston King had earlier said that day cares contribute to the social and economic functions of the family, since assistants play a crucial role in influencing the minds of the young ones; and day care staffers have an opportunity to impart core values such as discipline, respect, obedience and teamwork to the children they nurture and care for in the absence of their parents.
It is a popular belief that the Municipal Day Care services should be closed, since these have to be subsidised by the M&CC, but King has stated that he feels the day care services provided by the Council should be extended to accommodate more children and to help parents in need of these services.
The City Council manages four daycare centres, located at Festival City; Bourda; East Ruimveldt; and Industrial Site, Ruimveldt. Total enrolment at all five of the day care centres stands at approximately 280 persons.
The South Road Centre was the first centre opened. It began operating in 1933 as part of the maternal and child welfare service to the citizens of Georgetown, and was established as a place for the care of the children of domestic servants.
It has remained the only child-care facility for over four decades. However, with the election of Beryl Simon as Mayor, more emphasis was placed on childcare, and a second centre was opened in East Ruimveldt in 1974. In addition, in 1983, under the mayorship of Mavis Benn, another daycare centre was opened in Charlestown.
Children of these daycare centres are subdivided into age groups in a staff-to-child ratio, and their activities include routine resting, eating, health checks, and structured and unstructured play for early stimulation. Parents are organised into parent/staff committees to help organise and implement programmes for children for the development of the centre.