Dear Editor,
I grew up in the village of Bachelors Adventure on the East Coast of Demerara, a village that felt the brunt of the attack on the enslaved Africans who were agitating for their freedom from slavery on the plantations in Demerara on the 20th of August 1823. On this day over 200 Africans were slaughtered by the colony militia which was ordered by the then Lieutenant-Governor of Demerara; today this event is remembered as the Demerara Revolt of 1823.
This village has not totally recovered from that brutal act, and it is because of this that President Brigadier David Arthur Granger was instrumental in erecting a monument on the lawns of the Paradise /Bachelors Adventure/Melanie Commu-nity Centre situated at Public Road, Bachelors Adventure over five years ago, with the cooperation and support of descendant families of those martyrs.
With the emancipation of slavery in 1834 (apprenticeship lasted 1834-38) the freed Africans bought villages, built mainly churches and schools and ordered community lives in a system touted as the village movement.
It was common to use the schools for community meetings, weddings, indoor games, gyms, etc; youths in and out of school who were members of the community would also use the building for evening group study, and as such the security of the buildings was ensured. We all benefited immensely, and our young men and women excelled during the reign of the PNC, a government that implemented free education from nursery to university. However, when the PPP came to power in 1992 the school buildings which our forefathers built were declared off limits to the young people of these villages and guards were employed who enforced this. Education standards plummeted, and the youth groups which once used those schools at weekends were now prohibited from doing so. Many of these villages did not have community centres, and where they did have one as in the case of the Paradise, Bachelors Adventure, Melanie Community Centre, there were a few who proclaimed ownership of this building using political influence.
These school buildings should be used for training young people who no longer attend school, but who are keen to acquire skills that will render them employable.
Yours faithfully,
Aaron Blackman
