As a middle-level government bureaucrat from 1972 to 1976, I admired many of the economic policies of former President Forbes Burnham. For example, a group of us from various government ministries had volunteered for one week to work on the road-building project that was to link Wismar with Rockstone.
Self-help participants included senior as well as junior officers and clerks. There were males as well as females and there was a true spirit of familyhood and camaraderie among us after we had met and started working together. I was a senior officer at one of the ministries and I can recall the sensitive care that I received from a female class 11 clerk during a brief but uncomfortable period of illness. She didn’t have to do it as we all held the ‘rank’ of volunteer and were treated the same by project supervisors, who were not even interested in the professional disparities that existed among the volunteers.
I was also quite worried about a huge swelling that had occurred on my leg after being bitten by a kaboura fly. The advice I received from the said female camper helped to reassure me that there was nothing to worry about, as the swelling would go away once I had returned to Georgetown. So said so done, for the swelling did go away almost completely the day after my return to the city. It was like a miracle and I was very relieved. I was a mere stranger to that young lady, and yet she had gone out of her way to help me. Working together in this manner, did have the effect of bringing out the best in all of us.
When we arrived to do our stint of self-help, the government was in the first phase of the road-building project which was the clearing phase. The discipline of being awakened at 4 am every day did us all a lot of good. After a hearty breakfast, trucks would then take us out to the job site. We enjoyed quite a few rest breaks as well as other breaks for snacks and refreshment. A great deal of the heavy clearing was done by paid equipment operators, and the volunteers were required to do the lighter but more laborious clearing tasks with cutlasses. However, we tended to work at our own pace, and when I heard that the Wismar-Rockstone Road was finally completed, I was proud that I had made a contribution to this important endeavour that probably saved the government a significant amount of money. I don’t know what the present condition of the road is, but that is hardly the point.
It was the same with other weekend projects where we were required to paint a government building or start a vegetable garden. There was always camaraderie as well as a genuine sense of purpose and goodwill. Critics of Mr Burnham’s self-help thrust have said that volunteers were being used as “slaves,” but we never saw it that way, for working in self-help gave us the opportunity to get out of the office, dirty our hands and do something tangible for our country. As office workers, quite often we hide behind papers and produce very little for the entire day. With self-help it was easy to measure what was produced, and as stated earlier, it helped to unify the workforce in very meaningful ways. Self-help also helped to bridge the gap between physical and sedentary work, and gave the ‘white-collar’ worker a much better appreciation for the services of the hardcore working class.
Yours faithfully,
Rudy Vyfhuis
