Allow us, ladies and gentlemen of the media, to express our deep thanks and appreciation for your attendance today. We also wish to thank the GAWU for giving us this opportunity to speak to you and to the nation and those beyond Guyana about what our lives have become since we have become jobless following the closure of estates.
Today we speak to you as Guyanese citizens.We share with you all our stories of pain, difficulty and hardship as ordinary, honest, hard-working and decent-minded people. We want to say that we, like you and all Guyanese, only want what is reasonable for ourselves and for our loved ones. We too have dreams, and we too want to live a good and happy life. We want to provide for our families as we live dignified lives. We want for our children and our grandchildren and all our young ones to reach their goals and realise their dreams. We do not think what we want is wrong, or unreasonable.
Members of the media, our lives, since the closure of Wales Estate in 2016 and Skeldon, Rose Hall and East Demerara Estates in 2017, have literally been turned upside down. Many of the things we and our families had grown accustomed to are no longer present in our lives. Today, the normalness of life has changed and what was once usual has become a distant memory. Many days, in the villages of the closed estates, there are people who wake up not knowing what the day will bring. They go to bed with thoughts about how they will eat, or pay their bills, or send their children to school. They wake up as the reality sinks in that they have nowhere to go. They wake up to the realization that their jobs were taken away from them. And, they wake up to the grim reality that life has never been so hard.
We see and hear in the media, that people are saying we have gotten new jobs. We certainly wished what they are saying were true. But the painful truth is what they are saying is far from the truth. While some of our colleagues have gotten jobs, it’s a drop in the ocean. Many work day-to-day not knowing when today ends whether a job is there tomorrow. That ladies and gentlemen, is the brutal and honest truth. All the talk about giving us land or training turned out to be just talk. Some have said we got our severance pay and we should invest into a business. Indeed, it sounds like a good idea. But we ask who we will sell to when everyone around us is hard-pressed like we are.
In our villages we see parents having to make the hard decision to take their children out of school and send them in search of work to make ends meet. We see young female children being married just to ease the burdens on families. We see families breaking up unable to cope with the stress of joblessness. We see man, wife and children separated for months at a time as people venture out to look for work. But even those opportunities are limited. Today, poverty is at our door step and each day looks bleaker. This is not the life we or our families ever imagined we would face. This is not the way we want the young ones to grow up. This is not the way people should be made to live. We just want life to go back to the way it was. We just want to be able to work honestly and earn justly. We just want to be able to make our families happy and we want to be able to do our part in making Guyana a better place for us all. We see talk about re-opening of some estates. This, for many, would be a dream come true. This will go a long way to erase the pain and hardship we face today. This will allow us to regain the pride we cherish so much and miss so deeply. This will right the wrong and correct the injustices perpetuated against us and our families.
