– security threats cited
Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) officials are contemplating closing the school situated in the remote community of Anarika, citing security reasons.
Members of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) have expressed concern over the state of the community, which they claim has been abandoned.
Councillor Gordon Callender, during a statutory meeting of the Council last week, pointed to the serious complaints from teachers at the school that their homes were being broken in to at nights. Added to this, there are also major concerns about the incidence of statutory rape in the area.
“We would have received some information that when they’re at work people break into their homes…I heard that child rape has raised up in the area,” he said.
Regional Education Officer (REDO) Marcia Paddy Andrews said she was in the process of preparing a report concerning the issues, which would be forwarded to education officials.
“It is not safe to have those teachers there since it’s kind of a closed community. All the operations have been removed. There’s a serious threat to security,” she stated.
Paddy Andrews also indicated that there were discussions to close the school and have it merged with the school at Rockstone; however, she noted that the basic concern was getting the students to the school at Rockstone, which is situated approximately 10 miles away.
The REDO explained, “What is happening is that almost every week, the school is closed for two, three days. It means that we would have to put some system in place to get the children to Rockstone, so at this time we are exploring all the issues, then we will get to if it is possible to close the school down.”
Regional Chairman Renis Morian, during the meeting, also considered the possibility of either leaving the school opened or merging it with Rockstone.
“I’m wondering if we still need to have a school there. If we could merge two schools, I don’t know but…At the end of the day, every child matters,” he stated, concluding that a decision has to come from the Education Ministry.
Renis Morian
Several Councillors opined that the school at Rockstone was too far away for the students to walk from Anarika.
Paddy Andrews noted, however, that under the previous Administration many forms of transportation were provided for the communities and asked the RDC to take stock of what was happening since all seemed to be lost during the transitioning period. She said a bus was expected to be serving the two communities, which could be used to transport the students to Rockstone.
Councillor Vladimir Glasgow explained that to get to Rockstone from Anarika, it takes about 30 minutes in a vehicle, given the state of the road.
“All operations have been closed and it’s about seven persons living there. All the houses have been abandoned,” he said.
Meanwhile, Councillor Antonio Hackett said, according to his information, there are about eight families living in the community and the last check revealed that there were about 30 students attending the school at Anarika.
He said, however, that most of the students do not live within Anarika and Rockstone, noting that there were also reports of students seeing large animals while walking to school. Hackett further expressed concerns about getting to the area from Linden. He said that there were a lot of issues plaguing the community, but no one seemed to be paying attention, indicating that he would have already, by way of letter, made the issues known to the Indigenous People’s Affairs Ministry. He said despite this, the question remained of what the RDC was doing to address those issues.
Chairman Morian, in response, said there was specific funding for Indigenous communities; however, he promised to consult with Indigenous People’s Affairs Minister Sydney Allicock, as there were also socio-economic issues in the community. Councillor Gregory Harris pleaded not to have the school closed, taking into consideration that the Linden to Lethem road would soon come on stream and suggested the commencement of a housing drive to attract people to the area instead. He speculated that there may be a shift in population when the road comes on stream and opined that it may not be wise to close things down at the moment.
