Growing up at La Grange, West Bank Demerara, empowerment advocate, Amar Panday wanted to help people to develop themselves so they in turn could help others. Having gained some experience in knowledge sharing and advocacy in the world of work he set about creating the organisation Empower Guyana Consultancy (EGC) with a three-fold mission to achieve his ambitions.
In an interview, the 38-year-old Panday told Stabroek Weekend, “I see my role in life as an educator, as a facilitator. So in all the jobs I held, I have always gravitated towards sharing and transferring of knowledge.”
A former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rights of the Child Commission (RCC), Panday said, “I took on the role of CEO as I saw it as a way to make a contribution to the education and protection of children in Guyana. It was another avenue in which I was able to share and transfer knowledge.”
During the third quarter of 2020, he left the RCC to form EGC because he believed all of the things he was doing or was supposed to be doing at the RCC he could achieve effectively using his brand.
“At the RCC, I had to work along with the dictates of the commissioners and how they wanted things done. I believed I could do and succeed with my brand. That was the genesis of Empower Guyana.”
Panday worked with the RCC from December 2013 to September 2020, then went on to establish EGC.
Under Panday’s stewardship at the RCC, training of stakeholders to better equip them with the knowledge to protect the interests and rights of children, was emphasised.
“We shared with sector stakeholders the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and local laws relating to the protection of children. In spite of a number of constraints, I took my mandate seriously. I went out and got a lot of things done. We implore of them to take their responsibility seriously to protect and secure children’s rights and interests.”
While he did not detail what the constraints were, he said, “Under my charge we took the work of the RCC in all the regions and sub-regions of Guyana. Prior to assuming the office of CEO, this had never occurred. We formed relationships with educators, Indigenous village councils, neighbourhood democratic councils, regional democratic councils, and police divisions in all the regions. In far flung areas, we put in place mechanisms to protect the interests and rights of the child.”
Because of the training and the relationships, the RCC fostered with the Guyana Police Force, he said, “We were able to expedite and treat matters of child abuse very seriously, which was what they were supposed to do in the first place. Because of my intervention and the systems that I put in place, the relationship that the RCC nurtured with the police, children’s interests were put in a better place.”
Through the Office of the Prime Minister, under the tenure of Moses Nagamootoo, Panday said, the RCC held workshops with all the radio broadcasters in Mabaruma, Annai and Lethem on the UN Convention.
“What I am particularly proud off was on completion of the training with broadcasters of Radio Paiwamak at Annai in Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo), the broadcasters took the UN [Convention] and translated it into the Makushi language and they read it out on the radio station. This was the first time that I know in Guyana that an international human rights treaty was translated into an indigenous language.”
Satisfied with the work he did at the RCC, Panday said, “This and work I did at SKYE [Skills and Knowledge for Youth Employment] project and in teaching, have led me to what I’m now doing.”
Panday grew up at La Grange and attended Malgre Tout and Vreed-en-Hoop primary schools and later on Brickdam Secondary and St Stanislaus College. Between 2003 and 2008, he first completed a diploma in public communications at the University of Guyana (UG) and went on to pursue a degree with double major in English and History. He also obtained a Master of Arts degree in Human Resources Development from the University of the West Indies.
Following his period of study at UG, Panday held several jobs including brief stints as a reporter with Stabroek News and with the Guyana Defence Force. He taught at Mae’s Schools for a while then worked for a year with the USAID-funded SKYE project, which targeted young people who were deemed vulnerable.
On the SKYE project, Panday was involved in training young people in Region Three- West Demerara/Essequibo Islands in soft skills, such as how to conduct oneself in a job, how to interact with peers, and dealing with conflict resolution, among other areas that would serve them throughout their lives.
Empower Guyana
EGC was established in September 2020 and officially registered as an organisation in 2021. It has three arms – corporate, youth empowerment and humanitarian. It operates out of an office on New Road, Vreed en Hoop. The office is managed by himself and his spouse, Holika Klass.
EGC’s corporate arm provides training to public sector entities in areas of leadership, professional ethics, management, monitoring and evaluation.
“We are currently providing training to a number of government agencies, including the prison service, fire service, police, regional health officers, RDCs and municipalities. We just concluded training with the Georgetown municipality. When officers are trained to act professionally and to discharge their leadership mandate justly, the people of Guyana will benefit. That is the way Empower Guyana is promoting transformation through its business arm.”
Panday is the main consultant. Two others offer consultancy on behalf of EGC.
The youth empowerment branch has a youth ambassadorship programme with a membership of over 150 youths from across the ten regions of the country. They are trained and retrained in areas of leadership, youth empowerment and professional ethics. These youth ambassadors in turn train their peers to take part in the decision-making and management processes in their communities.
“We are doing training in all the regions to educate young people to participate in the development of their community, region and country. That is being done pro bono.”
For example, in Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni), Panday noted that the Regional Chairman has a youth advisory committee that provides insights to the RDC on youth related matters. Members of the youth advisory committee were trained by EGC. EGC has also conducted training with the young people in Indigenous communities, such as Santa Mission and St Cuthbert’s Mission, so they could better take part in the affairs of the village council.
“There is a strong indigenous community of young people who are asserting themselves in key leadership roles in Empower Guyana,” Panday said.
“Our position at Empower Guyana is that if young people are to be truly educated and be a part of the development of Guyana they have to be given the opportunity to take part in the affairs of the country at every level. They can’t sit on the outskirts. We encourage and train young people to be part of the development process, starting at the village level to the national level.”
Noting that EGC is a non-political entity, and that he himself has no political ambitions, he said young people have to become involved politically to be part of the decision-making bodies. “Myself and the youth ambassadors are all above the political fray. However, we work with all the governmental entities that are politically driven or have political identities, to promote youth empowerment because young people have a right to belong to any political party of their choice. Yes, it becomes tricky but that is something we have to respect and embrace. If they are going to participate as we want them to, they have to become involved in the political discussions so that is not something we discourage. However, they are expected to do so in a manner that is respectful of the democratic process and not be confrontational.”
He continued. “We try not to comment on political issues because it will put us into a political camp. We want to nurture good relations with the political forces in Guyana.”
Noting that EGC promotes Guyanese interest, he said earlier this year, the organisation organised two public forums, one in Georgetown and the other in Bartica, on the Guyana-Venezuela Border controversy. We wanted to promote awareness of the history of the issue among young people and country as a whole. We had partnered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and on both occasions, and foreign affairs expert, Carl Greenidge made the presentations on the issue.”
Noting that the youth ambassadorship programme includes young people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, he said, “It is a beauty to see how they come together and coexist to get their work done regardless of their religious persuasions. They emphasise cohesion rather than disunity. That is one of the strong points of Empower Guyana, the young people and their general make up from all backgrounds coming together to do a work they regard as noble. That has to be the future of Guyana and I think Empower Guyana represents the future of Guyana where people, regardless of background can embrace the sacred interest to promote Guyana as a whole.”
The humanitarian arm of EGC supports alternative care centres (orphanages) in Guyana. “Our flagship alternative care centre is the Hauraruni Girls Home, which we visit monthly. We engage them in educational and recreational activities in trying to make life better for them.”
For 2022, Panday said, EGC will partner with Food for the Poor and other agencies to provide care and other forms of assistance to other care centres.
The impact of COVID-19
Getting EGC off the ground and executing its programme during the Covid-19 pandemic was difficult, according to Panday.
“The product we are selling is training. Training involves meeting people and interacting with them. Virtual training is something we have had to resort to but speaking from my background as a trainer and an educator, the kind of training we would want to get involved in calls for some face-to-face communication. Some of the training activities planned for 2021 had to be put on hold. This included putting on hold a training exercise for the 16 days of activism to protect women and girls’ interests during November and December. That training was cancelled because of COVID-19 concerns. Without COVID we could have made greater progress in expanding our work.”
The book club and mobile library begun by EGC at Kairuni on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway was discontinued with the restrictions imposed to help curb the pandemic.
“We had so much plans to replicate this project in different regions. Come 2022 we will revisit. Our objective is to have more reading activities and knowledge sharing.”
With people being vaccinated against the virus and observing the COVID-19 protocols, he said, “We now look to push more of our agenda for 2022.”
This agenda includes the growth and progress in the different branches of EGC.
“We are hoping to do more training with the public and private sectors. In 2022, we have more training lined up with the Guyana Fire Service and the Georgetown Mayor and City Council. We want to expand the youth ambassadorship programme. We want to touch more of the hinterland communities with the youth empowerment agenda.”
