Coil: 51 dreams for Guyana

by Vidyaratha Kissoon
The run up to the 2015 elections had some really active involvement of youths in dreaming about Guyana . Some young people wrote about the “Guyana I want “ .
Some of the youths got the Guyana they wanted, and it seems things have fizzled out a bit.
I did an All fools Manifesto in 2015and then forgot about dreaming about Guyana because of some of the emerging nightmares that the dreams were not going to happen.
So dreaming about Guyana in 51 years of independence and not in any random order as dreams are never in order. It would be nice if some of this happens now :-
  1. There will be no beating of children in Guyana’s schools. There is a report of teachers beating an Amerindian child who might be dyslexic. There are other children suffering around the country.
  2. The Minister of Education will resign if he cannot stop teachers from beating children in Guyana’s schools
  3. Guyanese will stop beating their children.
  4. Teachers who want to be beat children will resign and go and work in the Marriott hotel.
  5. Teachers who want to beat children will go and plant flower and medicinal herb gardens in their communities. The parents who want to beat children will go and work with them.
  6. There will be serious programmes to address bullying and other forms of violence in schools.
  7. Every child in primary school will know to read and write at their level.
  8. The Minister of Education and Chief Education Officer will resign if there are children in primary school who cannot read and write at the standard level.
  9. Every school will have clean and working toilets.
  10. The Attorney General will apologise to Justice Holder in open court.
  11. The Ethnic Relations Commission will be activated
  12. The Human Rights Commission will be activated
  13. The Women and Gender Equality Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission, the Ethnic Relations Commission and the Indigenous Peoples’ Commission will have persons who subscribe to the Human Rights Conventions which Guyana has agreed to even if Guyana has not bothered with enforcing them in law.
  14. Every child with a disability will have access to quality free education.
  15. The Local Government Commission will be activated
  16. The President will convene an independent investigation into the allegations of child sexual abuse against his party comrade, Councillor Winston Harding.
  17. The National Assembly will ask the President to convene a Tribunal to investigate the allegations of child sexual abuse against former Minister Manickchand’s nominee on the Right of the Child Commission, Kwame McKoy
  18. People will refuse to vote for slap-and-strip-bheri .
  19. The political parties will have child protection policies and policies against gender based violence for their members.
  20. There will be pavements on all nice new roads where cars are speeding to avoid the main roads
  21. Guyanese will stop littering.
  22. The Prevention of Discrimination Act will be amended to prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.
  23. The Constitution transformation process will begin in 2017. It might never end.
  24. President Granger and the Leader of the Opposition will give up on finding a chairman from GECOM and just do the right thing and invite Vladimir Putin to nominate a Chairperson.
  25. President Granger and Bharat Jagdeo will also agree to replace the other commissioners with nominees from China, USA, and the remainder from Exxon Mobil.
  26. Guyana will change laws to decriminalise marijuana and to allow the cultivation of hemp
  27. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer citizens (LGBTIQ)will have the same rights as others Those who opposed these rights will not be rewarded with National Awards
  28. Guyana will have an active and engaged National Science Research Council
  29. The Institute of Applied Science and Technology will be an active institute which operates in an accountable and transparent way and which engages with the public to stimulate science and technological innovation
  30. The VAT on private education will be abolished before the new school term starts.
  31. Guyana will admit that it has a problem with alcohol.
  32. Guyana will spend the same energy on alcohol control as they are doing on tobacco control.
  33. There will be an annual book,literature festival in every region and municipality of Guyana
  34. Every municipality and NDC will have a space for cultural events.
  35. Cultural events will not include events with loud music. I know two citizens who have had to leave their homes because of the noise on national holidays.
  36. President Granger and Bharat Jagdeo will do joint public service ads to ask bus drivers to drive at the speed limit.
  37. President Granger and Bharat Jagdeo will do joint public service ads to ask bus drivers to not play loud music.
  38. President Granger and Bharat Jagdeo and other MPs will use minibuses at random times to move around.
  39. The money being spent to develop a cultural policy will be used to buy lots of copies of all the books which have won Guyana Prizes and put them in the libraries so citizens can borrow and read. Apparently the National Library has to put them in reference only.
  40. There will be the same amount of news headlines and front page news photos on renewable energy as there are about oil.
  41. There will be the same number of groups who are interested in money from renewable energy as there are hustling for the pickings from the oil and gas
  42. Guyanese will work with their local authorities to keep their surroundings clean
  43. The Government will implement the draft policy on the use of free and open source software in the public sector. (I worked on it so I kind of have an interest )
  44. The Head of the Mental Health Unit in the Ministry of Public will be account for the comprehensive National Mental Health Strategy. There will be an activity by activity update on the plan.
  45. Prime Minister Nagamoottoo and his information empire will release the Exxon and all other related contracts to the public.
  46. There will be an article about Guyana in every single edition of Caribbean Beat and Zing.
  47. Prime Minister Nagamoottoo and his information empire will be transparent about their sophisticated public information strategies to not bee responsive on things like the Government’s decision on the referendum on gay sex and the Government not having a travel black list.
  48. The Minister of Natural Resources will use money from the Gold and Oil earninngs to compensate all of the citizens from Chenapau who they recently traumatised.
  49. The experimental work being done on open data in the Government will be consolidated and turned into official Government policy and practice on releasing data for the public to use.
  50. The efficiency at the Passport Office will be replicated at all other Government agencies.
  51. There will be an active and vibrant National Film Commission/Board to stimulate the development of films about and in Guyana
It is always complex, this national dreaming. Some of these dreams might be nightmares for other people

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