Belle Vue

Nicholas Tappin and his camera shy cat Moses

Story and photos by Dacia Whaul

Drawn by the hope of a better life, approximately fifty-four farmers and their immediate families migrated from across the three counties of Guyana, to the Belle Vue Pilot Scheme, a co-operative venture, which is now known as Belle Vue Village. Belle Vue, when translated from the French means, ‘pretty view.’

This little breezy West Bank Demerara community has a population of 400 residents and has been in existence for over fifty years. It is located between Stanleytown village to the north, Goed Intent to the south, a sugarcane field to the west and the Demerara River to the east, of which the newly constructed seawall provides a panoramic view. It is divided into the pilot scheme – the area of the original co-operative project, and the squatting area.

“I came at one year ten months,” said Chatterpaul Budhiprasad, a son of one of the fifty-four cane farmers who migrated to Belle Vue. Budhiprasad described a happy community, when he spoke of the Belle Vue he grew up in.  “In those days we had a pavillon for children to play cricket” Budhiprasad said. “It was just the