Today (May 18, 2018), fifty-nine (59) of the now unemployed women workers who had been put on the breadline following the closure of Skeldon and Rose Hall Estates at the end of last year (2017) received food hampers, through donations garnered by the Guyana Solidarity Movement – New York (GSM-NY). The body is a grouping of Guyanese mainly resident in New York who have been heart-stricken by the callous decision to close sugar estates which has made thousands of Guyanese jobless.
Through the distribution exercise held in Canje, twenty-one (21) women workers from Rose Hall Estate received hampers. While another thirty-eight (38) who were employed at Skeldon Estate received their hampers at another exercise at #74 Village, Corentyne. Over the past week, ex-female sugar workers of Wales and East Demerara Estates have also received hampers compliments of the GSM-NY.
The women expressed their sincere appreciation to the GSM-NY and the overseas-resident Guyanese, who through their kind support, made the reality of the hampers possible. They shared that since their jobs were taken away from them, life has become extremely difficult. Many related they have searched nearly the entire length of the Corentyne Coast and in New Amsterdam for a job and have not been successful. They said jobs are most difficult to come by and they are almost no vacancies in keeping with their skills. They said that they have been stingily using their severance payments to live but those sums can only last for some time. After they cross that point they simply do not know what they would do.
The recipients said that life in the villages have become depressed since the estates were closed. They said crime is on the rise as people and depression among people is also increasing too. The women are very apprehensive about the future and worry what their lives would become in the months and years ahead.
The GSM-NY was pleased have provided the assistance recognizing the ocean of suffering that has been created by the closure of the sugar estates.
