Everychild

Gail Taylor's visit to Guyana

Flying over The Essequibo River en route to Georgetown, Guyana, I was struck by its Amazonian immensity, with mid-river islands as big as some of the Caribbean island countries I had just flown over! Rain forest, too, my favourite kind of vegetation! “Got to go there”, I thought, and get the T-shirt.

My real purpose in visiting Guyana this February, however, was to meet Cecil, the little boy I had been sponsoring with EveryChild for just over a year, and who was now 12.

I’d chosen to sponsor a child because I was feeling an acute awareness of just how well off we are in the West compared with the majority of the world’s population and I wanted to “put something back”. Giving money is really important, but through child sponsorship I felt I could give something of myself as well.

Cecil lives in Linden, a once thriving but now impoverished bauxite mining town with huge economic and social problems, 50 miles up the Demerara River from Georgetown.

EveryChild has joined forces with the Linden Care Project which was set up by one very enterprising local lady who saw the need for support for children infected, affected or likely to be affected by HIV/AIDS. There is now a thriving centre where children can go for a whole range of services and support.

My experience in visiting Cecil, and the local project through which EveryChild supports him, was a confirmation of the value of EveryChild’s approach.

I was so impressed by the motivation and dedication of the staff at the project, and by the thorough and rounded approach which above all aims to meet the needs of the children. EveryChild now has such a good reputation for pioneering work in psycho-social support, counselling for children and community out-reach work that the EveryChild office in Georgetown has been approached by the Guyanese Government to provide training for staff in their own equivalent of the Child Protection Agency.

I met Cecil and his lovely mother, Jean, in one of the rooms at the Centre. Cecil, a naturally shy boy, was at first struck dumb with shyness. Small talk with a 12 year old boy is hardly viable at the best of times! How to find common ground? Fascinated by my mobile phone/camera, which has various other functions, Cecil asked to see what it could do. I learned from his mother that his best subject is maths so I set him some tasks to do on the calculator and got put in my place as he whipped through it revealing to me all kinds of functions and short-cuts that were new to me. Ice successfully broken!

The other joy of this visit was seeing Cecil’s reaction to the small and inexpensive gifts I had taken. I would have put my money on his loving the marbles above all, but he burst out laughing with sheer joy when I gave him two Virgin Atlantic Airline overnight plane travel kits.

Cecil also looked so pleased in a shy and almost secretive way, when I gave him a couple of photos of myself I had bought from England. He wrapped them so carefully and put them at the bottom of his bag. I think I finally begin to understand that what the EveryChild staff say is true: the fact that someone on the other side of the world cares about and values these children really is important to their self-esteem.

My visit was well organised; I, and my partner Roger, who accompanied me, felt very well taken care of from when I first mentioned that I wished to visit, to when we were taken back to our hotel in Georgetown. Both Georgetown and Linden are interesting places to visit and Guyana is a wonderful and fascinating country. I could wax lyrical about our visit to an Amerinidian village, our jungle and river-trips, trekking and canoeing through the rain-forest, cayman-spotting at night, shooting the rapids on the Essequibo!

Would I recommend other sponsors to visit? Don’t hesitate! It will be a great experience for you and a real gift to the children and the staff in the project.

If you are interested in learning more about going on a visit, please email our Sponsorship Team or call them on 020 7749 2480.

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Gail Taylor's visit to Guyana