A team including Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green and social activist Mark Benschop yesterday visited the village of Buxton and distributed clothing, toys and other items. In photo Green stands by the door while Benschop hands out items. (Photo courtesy Benschop Foundation)





It is good to see him (Benschop) doing some good in the impoverish community, rather than speaking nonsense all the time.
Ravi, your comment should have ended at ‘community.’ Since Mr. Benschop’s release, he has been trying to help persons in impoverish communities, so stop going back to his past. That ended more than two years ago.
While I commend Mark Benschop and the good people at the Benschop Foundation, I can not help but express thoughts that the mere fact that Buxton and Friendship and other villages particularly on the East Coast of Demerara are now referred to as impoverished communities. It’s my conviction the sad state of the rural communities is an indictment of the ruling class, and also the electorate of Guyana for allowing the continuance of their ineptitude and gross negligence over a period of more than 55 years.
In fact, the Most Honorable Prophet Wills speaking at the 100th. Anniversary of Emancipation of slavery on August 1, 1938 in Buxton warned the audience of the effects of negligence of commitment to community development;
“The race of people who do not thirst with assiduity for education is doomed. You and your children must make the sacrifice. If you don’t, then the great dreams of the people who bought and established these villages will be undeservedly squandered.” —Simeon Josephus Wills a.k.a. Prophet Wills August 1, 1938 Buxton. The above quote is taken from a speech marking the 100th. Anniversary of Emancipation made by Prophet Wills on August 1, 1938. It is found in the Wayne Jones’s 1995 publication – Prophet Wills: the Walking Dictionary.
The words of the prophet have rather sadly and most disturbingly come to fruition – his words have come to pass – that’s for sure and our people and our communities are in worst shape today than they were when they were in the hands of the descendants of the shareholders who purchased those villages. The politicians have destroyed and are destroying everything in Guyana to suit their own, personal ends – and what’s worst we the people of Guyana are committing grave sins against ourselves by allowing them to perpetuate this fraud against us for too long – all are guilty…and needs to be condemned.
Ravi and others who think like him should be happy that the USA allows them to stay here and enjoy freedom, and not throw them out of the country back to Guyana so that they can deal with what everyone else is dealing with so that they could sing a different tune. Because if Martin Luther King and others didn’t stand up for what they believed in, he could not have been here nor could he have had the liberty to speak. In closing, Guyana needs someone to speak up about the injustice and inhumane situations that are facing Guyanese people, so Mr. Benschop, I applaud you for speaking up for those who can’t speak.
While I agree with some of your comments. Mark Benschop doesn’t speak for most Guyanese. He is no Martin Luther King for sure.
I agree with you kay, but sometimes a man has to say it as it is. If Ravi did’nt, I would have.
If he had been doing this in the past what he is doing now as you claim, think of how much good he could done and how many young lives he could have impacted. It is just a shame how some own agenda can lead them astray, just by nor working for the betterment of the county and its people.
So after all you prison did him well.