Ishmael reaches out to Guyanese in San Felix, Puerto Ordaz

Guyana’s Ambassador to Venezuela Dr Odeen Ishmael and a  five-member team from the embassy last weekend in the Venezuelan industrial city of Ciudad Guayana  assisted more than 200 Guyanese in renewing their passports and another 200 in applying  for new and first-time passports.

Over the two-day consular outreach exercise, the team met with hundreds of Guyanese nationals residing in  Ciudad Guayana, located at the junction of  the Orinoco and the Caroni  Rivers, 600 miles south-east  of Caracas,  the Guyana Embassy in Caracas said in a press release.

Most of the Guyanese who migrated to Venezuela reside in  various  parts of this sprawling industrial city.
In the two-day period the assistance with the passports was concentrated  at four different centres in the city’s large municipalities of San Felix and Puerto Ordaz.
Many of the Guyanese in Ciudad Guayana  are illegal  residents and a sizeable proportion of them do not even possess Guyanese passports or even  copies of their birth certificates which form the essential requirement for them to apply for passports, the release said.

Moreover, a great proportion of them are also without Guyanese identification documents, even though they have been living in Venezuela for as long as twenty years.

Therefore   they cannot apply for Venezuelan residency which many of their compatriots with the relevant documents  have already acquired.

Ambassador  Ishmael in addressing the Guyanese nationals who turned out in large numbers at the four locations explained to them how they can acquire  other documents such as copies of birth and  marriage certificates, and also the process they have to follow to enable their children born in Venezuela to acquire Guyanese passports.

The release stated that according to the city authorities of Ciudad Guayana, more than 36,000 Guyanese reside there with the largest concentration in the municipality of San Felix.  While some have found employment in the city’s iron, steel and aluminium industries, most of the ‘illegals’  are employed as labourers, domestics and ice-cream  vendors.

However, some others are self-employed mainly in the transportation business and in operating small farms, groceries and small stores.

The release said that at a lengthy  meeting last Saturday with  Mayor of the city, Clemente  Scotto, Ambassador Ishmael discussed the problems of the Guyanese  nationals and sought the city government’s assistance in helping to more rapidly incorporate the Guyanese community into the general Venezuelan society.

And Ishmael reminded the mayor that many Guyanese children, owing to their non-possession of Guyanese birth certificates, face problems  in obtaining admission to schools.

The  mayor told Guyana’s ambassador that he was aware of this particular problem and it was currently being addressed.

He said also that the Guyanese, because of their language and religions, tend to form a closed community and generally they would not participate in civic programmes  organized by the city authorities.

However,  Mayor Scotto said that he noticed a positive shift in February  when a representative organization of the Guyanese in the city organized a food fair  to mark Guyana’s republic anniversary and  the general public was invited.

Meanwhile, the ambassador and the mayor also discussed problems associated with employment of Guyanese in the area.  In this regard,  the mayor noted that many employers exploit the ‘illegal’ Guyanese  who are forced to accept menial wages for long hours of work.   Moreover, he  expressed concern over the perceived movement of criminals, the contraband trade, and drug and arms trafficking across the Guyana-Venezuela  border, a situation which he said has also  resulted in a higher level of  money laundering in his city.

During the ambassador’s meetings with the Guyanese nationals he informed them of the discussions he held with Mayor Scotto and urged them to make greater efforts to incorporate themselves in the affairs of the  wider community  in which they are now an essential part, the release added.