The National Day of Villages will be observed on Monday (tomorrow), along with the launch of the 177th Anniversary commemorative stamp.
Several villages across the country are in preparation for the inaugural National Day of Villages in commemoration of the establishment of the first village and the contributions of freed slaves to the village movement.
Boys walking home from school in the village
The observance will be held at Sendall Park, Victoria, East Coast Demerara, and will see in attendance President David Granger and Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan, among other officials.
Representative of the Victoria Reconstruction Trust (VRT) Abraham Poole said that the event will also feature a village tramp and various culinary competitions as well as a discourse on modernising family life.
He stated that the National Village Day observances began Wednesday last with a medical outreach and the opening of Indaba (a village conference of elders) on Thursday. The indaba continued on Friday with an Agriculture Fair and Exhibition, and on Saturday with workshops on climate change and revitalising of farming in Victoria.
Today the villagers will gather for a family fun day which will conclude with a dramatic piece depicting the legend of Victoria Village. The celebrations will culminate on Monday when other villages will also gather to observe the inaugural National Village Day. This event will be commemorated yearly following a motion proffered by President Granger in his capacity then as Leader of the Opposition.
Victoria is Guyana’s first village and the purchase is significant to local folklore, literature and history: On November 7, 1839, 83 men and women collected their coins and brought them in bags in a wheel-barrow 30 kilometres from what was then Plantation Northbrook to Georgetown to buy land.
