Gov’t awards $50M to commence innovative community projects

Twenty-four groups and 13 STEM Clubs from the 10 Administrative Regions were presented with Government grants under the Science, Technology, Engineering, Architecture, Agriculture, Arts, Anthropology, Mathematics (STEAM) initiative, totalling $50M, to bring their projects to fruition.

Among the projects you can see coming on stream is the “Strategic preparation for youths in mining and oil.”

According to one of the entrepreneurs, Joshua Griffith, the project caters to the involvement of young people in the emerging oil and gas industry. With $1M awarded to his group, 15 persons will be recruited from each county for training in geotechnical areas with the Institute of Engineering, Geo-physics and offshore development studies. The fairly new institute is located on Durban Street, Georgetown.

Griffith told News Room that, “we saw the need for young people to be relevantly or gainfully employed or seek relevant employment or training in fields that are relevant. And we thought that mining and oil is very relevant to this time and so we partnered with this organization to help them persons at the fundamental level in the three counties.”

Another one of the projects to receive an award deals with Technology for Special Needs. The Youth Innovation Project of Guyana -Cacique Foundation in collaboration with Gifted Hands Learning Centre for Special Needs children offers robotics technology for youths with disabilities.

Representative, Elenie Andre noted that the project helps students with mental and physical disabilities to learn for example Mathematics in an easier way.

A number of projects were presented to deal with alternative livelihoods within communities including sewing and other skills training, recycling, food security, mental health, gender discrimination and reproductive health.

The awards were handed over by Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo at an Education Day Rally held today at the D’Urban Park, Georgetown. The rally was hosted as part of Education Month activities which is being observed under the theme “Promoting Wellness in Communities through Quality Education”.