Dear Editor,
On Sunday, April 22 at approximately 23:00 hrs, I observed a very disturbing and disgusting sight. Residents of Kwakwani were out in their usual numbers to support their teams in a basketball competition.
It was a wonderful spectacle to see the number of residents out to be entertained by workers of the bauxite company involved in a basketball competition.
What was disturbing was that after the game children could be seen playing chi-chi. Some of these children were as young as seven years old. And the disgusting part was that parents and police officers were standing close by and could not see anything wrong with that, or probably were not seeing what I saw.
It is my view that these game-board operators should only operate when there are fairs and if permission is granted, but schoolchildren must not be allowed to participate.
As a person who highlights issues affecting my community, I usually give information on almost every aspect, but what I am beginning to realize is that most issues only come to the fore when they affect someone personally.
A lot of these issues are created by us, the residents, but unless we understand that when something is morally wrong it is wrong, we will turn a blind eye to wrongdoing.
I was moved to write on the disturbing sight referred to above because of the letter by Mark Archer in SN of April 23, captioned The poor don’t need words, they need to be organized.’ Mr Archer said that what is needed in Guyana is for family-focused community building and a campaign whereby neighbourhoods organise.
There are a number of issues we have differences on which will keep us apart, but there must be some that could bring us together. If we the parents cannot see that it is morally wrong to have our children playing chi-chi at 11 o’clock on a Sunday night during term time, then we will not be able to see the other highly immoral things that are taking place around us.
Please let us come together and save our children.
Yours faithfully,
Jocelyn Morian
