Stakeholders briefed on GuySuCo’s social resilience programme

– coordinator says “tremendous response” from redundant workers

The Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) on Thursday morning hosted a briefing session on the implementation of its ‘Sustainable and Resilient Communities Programme’ in order to mobilise additional Public Sector agencies.
The social resilience programme is a counteraction to the effects and impacts arising out of the downsizing of the sugar industry. Thursday’s session sought to engage stakeholders with the objective of establishing a coordinating committee to roll out the programme.

Discussions were focused on medium- to long-term approaches for implementing GuySuCo’s social resilience programme and the Alternative Livelihoods Initiative, which aims at re-skilling ex-employees and identifying employment opportunities for them as well as up-skilling current employees.
During the session, participants also looked at the framework for the transitioning of sugar dependent communities that have been affected following the closure of the Rose Hall, Skeldon, Wales and Enmore estates, to make them more economically, socially and environmentally resilient.
Meanwhile, Coordinator of the programme, Curbette Victorine, told the Department of Public Information (DPI) on Thursday that already the programme has been yielding success, particularly with the response from those displaced workers.
“I think we have had tremendous success and response; a lot more than we initially anticipated. Knowing what redundancy was going to bring, we did not get the negative impact as we would normally expect for such a major redundancy,” Victorine said in the interview.

According to Victorine, said there are several groups of former workers who are now better positioned to offer services to the reorganised sugar company.
“What we would have done so far would have allowed for employees to continue or be contracted to GuySuCo. In cases where they were expected to offer services to GuySuCo, we already have that ongoing. Our maintenance of canals programme, we have persons who have shown an interest and have indicated their willingness to work either as operators of excavators and contractors doing manual cleaning. We recently had quite a few of our ex-employees coming together to plant canes on our existing estates and I think there is heightened interest being shown in this programme at this point in time,” the coordinator explained.
Among the targeted stakeholders at Thursday’s engagement session were the Small Business Bureau; Department of Social Cohesion, Culture, Youth and Sport; Social Protection Ministry; Communities Ministry; President Youth Award Republic of Guyana (PYARG) and National Trust.
The next step will feature consultations with the regional administration from Regions Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); the Private Sector Commission (PSC); Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI); Berbice Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and other private sector organisations in these regions, to share the Strategic Action Plan.
The Plan focuses on key short, medium and long-term actions, stakeholder responsibilities, timelines, keys milestones, monitoring and evaluating, funding and a risks assessment.