…as PM urges Guyanese to look forward to New Year full of opportunities
In a Christmas Day message that zeroed in on the importance of national unity to make Guyana stronger and more resilient, President Dr Irfaan Ali noted that the Christmas holiday brings with it a message of hope for society and for the nation.
President Ali joined First Lady Arya Ali and their son Zayd in extending heartfelt greetings to all Guyanese on the festive occasion. He noted that the nativity and the message of Christmas reminds that we are all our “brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.”
“The celebration of Christmas recalls many images including the nativity scene which depicts the humble birth of Jesus, lying innocently and peacefully in a manger, wrapped in “swaddling clothes” and surrounded by his caring and protective mother and father. This timeless image of the Holy Family is a powerful model of faithfulness, love, and unity.”
“Today, our human family faces many challenges. God’s creation, established to provide for our needs, is under threat by the climate crisis. Conflict between and within countries has occasioned deaths, destruction, and suffering and have exacerbated the hardships occasioned by the global health crisis,” the President said in his message.
He noted that notwithstanding all of this, Guyana can withstand any challenge as long as we remain united “as a family, a community, as a society and as a nation”. He noted that Guyanese will thus be better able to respond to life’s challenges.
“The true meaning of Christmas is to be found in the humbleness and simplicity of Christ’s nativity. It invites us to manifest a spirit of solidarity with the wider human family, and especially the vulnerable in our midst – the sick, the hungry, the poor, the destitute, and the infirm. As members of the wider human family, we have a responsibility to attend to the needs of the less.”
