The Linden Fund is disappointed at the poor coordination of several educational events planned for the just-concluded Linden Town Week, including a teacher’s workshop that opened with none of the participants present.
As has become customary, the Linden Fund USA organised and sponsored some of the major Town Week events, particularly those focused on education. The activities included a Spelling Bee for primary school students; educational workshops targeting parents,
teachers, school administrators, community leaders and other key groups; a luncheon for senior citizens; a men’s leadership forum; the distribution of backpacks; an achievement awards ceremony for students of the Christianburg Primary School; a women’s empowerment forum; and a psychiatric nursing seminar.
Dr Vincent Adams, Chairman of the Linden Fund USA, expressed disappointment at the turnout and no shows at several of the events. According to Adams, the first stumbling block surfaced at the Spelling Bee. He explained that when the team arrived at the venue, which was the Linden Concert Hall and School, the doors were closed and there was no electricity. Determined to go on with the programme, the competition went on in the dark and without a public address system.
Adding to the disappointment was the fact that only five teachers showed up while no parents turned up to support their children.
“The next day we showed up for the teachers’ workshop and zero teachers showed up for the opening ceremony. We even had the minister and his media crew who came and had to leave because the doors weren’t opened on time and there were no signs of teachers to participate in the ceremony,” Adams said. He added that this was an embarrassment for the fund, after it had worked to convince the minister to attend the workshop and give his blessings.
Last year, the activities were well attended and it was teachers who had called for their continuation this year.
Dr Walter Kyte, a key facilitator of the education workshop, in a previous interview, said that teachers seem not to have the yearning for development. He noted that while he had made his telephone number and email address available to all the teachers last year, he did not get a single email or call. “I could understand that to make calls might have been expensive but at least an email for any form of assistance would have shown that there is a thirst for help,” he said. He added that this situation has not deterred him and he will continue to make himself available to offer whatever assistance he can to aid the local education system.
There was a ‘no show’ at the men’s forum. Adams noted that the other activities ended well, despite the poor turnout by participants. Some of the activities that came off very well included the senior citizen luncheon and the distribution of backpacks to nursery schools across Linden.
Adams said that the fund will continue to focus on the fundamental building blocks for the Linden community to make it competitive. “The most important thing is education. We will continue to focus on education. We will continue to bring in medical teams, and work with the leadership of Linden to make sure that they have the right things in place,” he said.
Adams added that strategies have to be implemented for the creation of jobs, since the unemployment rate is extremely high in Linden. He noted that the Fund has submitted a strategic plan, which is sitting in the National Assembly. “We need to partner with the Regional Chairman and the Town Council to put that plan together to help develop this town that we so love,” he said.
Meanwhile, there were scant exhibitions at the Linden Bus Park, which was designated as the exhibition central for the Town Week. What dominated the weeklong celebrations was the series of parties that were hosted.
Several persons, however, expressed disappointment at the manner in which the police handled the street jams at the Mackenzie and Wismar ends. While the police stopped most of the street parties at Wismar on the night that was designated Wismar night—which many said resulted in them suffering great losses—this was not the situation at Mackenzie, where street activities were left to run until the next day without interruption.
“The Town Week committee needs to be doing better after all these years, it’s time that they look at giving the organising to the Kashif and Shanghai organisation, which has proven that they have what it takes to coordinate and execute activities of this nature,” one person said.
