Translations of the concepts and objectives of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) will be done in five Amerindian languages through the Office of Climate Change in collaboration with the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, the Government Informa-tion Agency (GINA) reported.

GINA said that translations will be done in the Patamona, Wai Wai, Wapishana, Akawaio and Macusi languages and the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs is at present awaiting submissions of the completed translations from the various communities except the Patamona language which has already been submitted.

This initiative is aimed at promoting a better understanding of the LCDS among Guyana’s Amerindian people who are cited as part of the strategy’s main stakeholder group.

It builds on a similar project that was funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) last year to publish dictionaries containing the languages of the various tribes and their accompanying meanings. In April the dictionaries were presented to the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology on Main Street for distribution to the Amerindian communities.

According to GINA, the multi-stakeholder committee team that was responsible for explaining the LCDS in the simplest way possible during the consultations had recognised from the inception that the language barrier would have been one of the limitations to the full comprehension of the strategy.