If OVP wins the Region 4 Democratic Council,  we pledge to:

POWER & WEALTH IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE

• Establish people’s committees, giving power back to the community, so that the people can actively participate in the decisions that affect their lives. These committees will advise the Regional Council on the specific needs of their community, and participate in the day to day administration of their own community.

 

• Ensure that the funds allocated for Region 4, are used to benefit all residents of the region, and not a select few. There will be zero tolorance for corruption and misuse of funds. We must protect the region’s natural environment, while also utilizing the Region's resources to develop our trade, manufacturing and industrial sectors. We pledge to apply pressure from Region 4, ag-ainst the plunder of our natural resources nationwide by foreign corporate predators,who have been allowed to take what they want and give us little or nothing in return. We will begin to put in place measures that prevent, where possible, the export of raw materials, emphasizing a value added, 'made in Guyana' approach.

 

ECONOMIC JUSTICE & EMPLOYMENT

• Create employment through infrastructure spending, development of manufacturing and industry, and promotion and assistance for small businesses and co-operatives. The list of products that Guyana could offer the world is endless. After years of mismanagement, we have been reduced to an absurd state of affairs, where we are importing plantain chips and coconut water, rather than encouraging and promoting local production. Developing a strong manufacturing sector throughout Region 4 will be a priority for an OVP Regional Council.

 

SOCIAL SERVICES & WELFARE

• OVP will implement a holistic and culturally responsive programme to deal with the range of serious issues that are sadly all too prevalent throughout Region 4, and indeed throughout the country. These include inter-generational abandonment, sexual abuse of children and young adults, teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy, Teenage alcohol and drug abuse, teenage and adult homelessness, children abandoned by the State foster care system, and people with mental health issues. This programme will provide psychotherapy, psycho-social and educational intervention and prevention. All residents of Region 4 must have equitable access to social services.

 

• As part of our holistic social services framework, we will  support initiatives to assist families in crisis. Too many Guyanese children are malnourished. We must put in place a plan to fight poverty at the regional level while applying pressure at the national level.  We will implement support initiatives for people on low and moderate incomes to have access to affordable housing. A large number of Guyanese in Region 4 live in substandard housing, many in shacks that have no electricity and often no running water. Again Region 4 must demand action from central government.

 

DRAINAGE & INFRASTRUCTURE

• Overhaul and repair Region 4’s drainage system – we already have a team of specialists ready to start this urgent project. We must eliminate, once and for all  the flooding that occurs every time there is a few hours of rainfall. The problem of flooding has definitely improved under the present government compared to what it was under the PPP, however it is still not resolved in many areas.

 

• We will work closely and collaboratively with the Ministry of Public Infrastructure to repair roads, public walkways, markets, malls, gardens and parks throughout the region. We will raise funds to build adventure playgrounds with picnic areas – public areas where families can enjoy leisure time together. In the same spaces we can build bike tracks and erect basketball hoops and other outdoor activities for the older children and young teens. Strong and functional families are the bedrock of a healthy society.

 

SPORTS & RECREATION

• We will fight for funds to Invest in and promote sporting activity, ensuring that all youngsters throughout the region have access to sports amenities and the sporting equipment they need. Support and assistance must be given to local coaches and all sports grounds must be maintained.

 

LAND IS FREEDOM - LAND TO THE TILLER

• Land is freedom and too many Guyanese throughout Region 4 have been waiting for more than 10 years for land applied for, while foreigners and local elites are being granted land within weeks and months. This must come to an end and OVP will apply the pressure needed to ensure that land applications are processed..

 

REVIVING THE REGION'S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

• Support farmers throughout the region in an effort to revive the region’s agricultural sector. We will ensure that the central government upholds the constitutionally guaranteed right - land to the tiller! In full consultation with all farmers and major stakeholders, Region 4 can lead the way in moving Guyana’s agricultural sector forward. We must open up new markets for our farmers and assist them to get their produce to those markets. Trenches must be cleared and roads properly built and repaired. In the world we now live in, the large amount of arable land in Guyana is a most valuable asset. Quality, non-GMO, organic food production is in high demand globally, and that demand is set to increase in the future. We have the capacity to produce large quantities of organic food to not only sustain the needs of our own population, but to export in the form of produce and related manufactured goods. An OVP Regional Council would encourage organic farming, providing assistance, incentives and education to our farmers. The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is causing serious health problems, including high cancer rates amongst our people. We will also urge the national government to join those nations worldwide that have banned genetically modified seeds and take urgent measures to protect our indigenous seeds. Our indigenous seed pool can only increase in value to us and to the world as a whole, as the issue of food insecurity becomes a threat. If we do not take these steps now we will lose our food sovereignty and security, becoming completely dependent on international corporate criminals, such as Monsanto, and only able to produce genetically modified crops.

 

HEALTHCARE

• Select a team of Guyanese doctors and healthcare professionals to advise on ways to improve the health of residents throughout the region. Our public healthcare system remains a national disgrace, evidenced by the fact that past and present presidents and government ministers seek medical attention abroad. We must invest in the health of our people, improving every resident’s access to existing health services throughout the region, and applying pressure at the national level, to demand improved healthcare services. It is a moral obligation of government at the national level to ensure quality healthcare for all Guyanese. We must reduce our maternal/infant mortality rate, which is one of the highest in the Caribbean, working to improve our pre and postnatal care. An OVP Regional Council will set up Parenting Groups, where young mothers and mothers to be can get assistance with problems they are experiencing and learn about health, healing, parenting, and nutrition. We must work to improve young people’s health by promoting preventive and holistic healthcare, covering physical, mental and sexual well-being, and improve services for the elderly and disabled. Of course, we cannot remedy all the ills at the regional level, however we will use our power at the regional level to mobilize and organize together, and with one voice, put our clear and urgent demands to the central government. Region 4 is a very strategic region.

 

EDUCATION & CULTURE

• At the regional level we must work to improve every student’s ability to gain access to education. We must acknowledge that our current education system, while presenting itself as a fair system that offers all children an equal opportunity, is really a very unfair system. The way the present system operates, children from poor families do not stand the same chance as children from wealthy homes. This is one of the cruelest aspects of our society, an education system where so many of the nation’s children are doomed to failure, without access to books, computers, printing etc. We believe that regardless of the financial position of parents, every Guyanese child has the right to reach their full potential, in a system that assists families with challenges, rather than punishing them. The importance of educational opportunity for our children and young people cannot be emphasized enough, for it is a fundamental cornerstone for the advancement of any society. We must invest in literacy and numeracy programs and after school homework programs to assist those students in need and reduce the high level of illiteracy throughout the region. In the Parenting groups advocated above, we will initiate programs that assist parents to develop their children's literacy and numeracy skills at a very early age. We believe that education is a right not a privilege.

 

• Invest in and promote educational and cultural activities, offering a range of workshops for youth and adult learners, giving them the opportunity to gain important life skills, learn about their history and culture, and access education which will help them with employment and self-employment. An adult learner is defined as anyone who has left school and is 16 years of age and over. These workshops will also raise awareness about the things that hold us back. For example, in Guyana, and all over the Caribbean, we don't appreciate ourselves or the blessed environment we live in, but rather are looking to all things foreign. The strange thing is that foreign people are mad over what we have got, and are taking it from right under our nose! This foreign minded attitude is encouraged by those that want to keep us right where we are. It is responsible for so many of our young people suffering from low self-esteem and lack of confidence. No love of self. We must invest in providing knowledge of self to our youth because knowledge is power. As the Richie Spice laments, 'If education is the key, then why they make it so expensive for we?'

 

SUPPORT FOR THE ARTS

• Support the Arts! It is a sad fact that the arts receive little or no support from the past PPP regime and the current government. OVP will fight for funds to build an Arts Center like no other in Region 4. The Center will contain a recording studio, a fine arts gallery and a theater and will be managed by Regin 4's multi-talented youth. It is time to unleash the creative genius of all Region 4's youth - a genius that has been neglected for too long. The artistes involved in the Center will have the opportunity to earn a living from their art by running classes, selling their works, staging plays and the promotion of local music. In this way the Center will be self-sustaining.

 

DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

• Support initiatives to legalize marijuana for personal use. Not because we want the 'Rasta vote', although of course we do! But rather out of respect for the many Rastafari members and supporters of OVP, and all Rastafari in Region 4. OVP acknowledges the liberation theology of Rastafari, and the Black consciousness and spiritual wisdom it has brought to the entire Caribbean. Marijuana is part of Rastafari religious practice. The current laws are absurd. Regardless of your views on stimulants, it is ludicrous that tobacco and alcohol, two drugs responsible for millions of serious illnesses and deaths worldwide are legal, while this local herb is illegal. It doesn't make sense for our young people to be serving long prison sentences, enduring experiences that will affect them for their entire life, for being in possession of a few buds of this local herb.

 

REPARATIONS

• To work with organizations in the region and globally, in the fight for reparations to the descendants of captured Africans in Guyana, the Caribbean and elsewhere. We believe that this is both a historical and moral right due to all the descendants of African slaves.

 

PROMOTING GENUINE MULTI-CULTURALISM

Promote authentic multiculturalism, based upon knowledge of a shared heritage, and a genuine respect for, and understanding of the valuable contributions made by each of the diverse cultures that make up Region 4. Multiculturalism has failed dismally worldwide, because wherever it exists, one group has become dominant at the expense of the others. We can only claim a truly multicultural region and nation, when every ethnic group’s contribution to Guyana is recognized, and when racial justice and equality of opportunity exist for all.