Santa Rosa Toshao wants new trade school to reduce social ills

– improved access to health care needed

In light of the issues surrounding youth substance abuse in some sections of the North West District community of Santa Rosa, Toshao Sherwin Abrams has renewed calls for the establishment of a technical and vocational institute to equip young persons with life skills.
In an interview with Guyana Times, Toshao Abrams highlighted that the riverine nature of Santa Rosa and the satellite communities allowed for the easy transport of prohibited substances, mainly marijuana.
“We are trying to curb it and control it; we are currently forming a policing group to support the Police [who] is trying to suppress substance abuse,” he noted.
To this end, Abrams stated that the Council was also able to establish a social assistance board to supplement the Village Council in the Moruca region to do counselling, and outreaches to educate and sensitise the youths about substance abuse. According to the village leader, parents are encountering challenges with their children when they consume narcotic substances.
“Once they consume it, they feel they’re bigger than their parents; parents have no control, so it is a real issue with families,” he said.
Abrams highlighted that for the past three years, the Council has been advocating for Government to establish a technical centre, which can include school drop-outs and recovered substance abusers. He noted that the Council was requesting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs Ministry the establishment of the technical institute within the Moruca sub-region. This institution, according to Abrams, would cater for many trades not just carpentry, joinery, and plumbing.

Access to education, health-care delivery
The Toshao also highlighted other issues affecting his community, including problems with access to education and health services. He noted that because the communities were along the river, access for students living farthest away posed a problem. However, he stressed that despite these challenges, many students from the area have managed to garner excellent results which have made their communities proud. Abrams said that Santa Rosa has over 7000 residents.
“We have been facing problems with accessibility, because most of the communities are along the river and transportation is an issue, but in terms of the education standard, we are there, because we always produce a lot of students who attend Multi [Anna Regina Multilateral Secondary] and other schools in Georgetown,” he remarked.

Accessibility to health services
With regard to public health care, Abrams told this publication last week that most of the doctors and nurses at the district hospital in the Moruca sub-region were from his village.
“It has been in existence for past 30 years, but today we are not receiving our delivery of health care. There is an x-ray department, but it’s not functioning. We have a lab, but it’s not functioning as well [to full capacity]; we do basic things like dengue and malaria,” he disclosed.
Toshao Abrams added that another of the major challenges in the area was teenage pregnancy and he hoped that the counselling services offered at Moruca would alleviate this problem.