Dear Editor,
Someone sent me a post of a 15-year-old child of indigenous extraction. It is a harrowing tale, and one that should deeply touch many. She was badly burnt in the Mahdia Secondary School dorm fire, and is currently experiencing great difficulty in coping with the brutal aftermath. I can only imagine the flashbacks, the nightmares, and terrors that are now routine in this young girl’s life. In proceeding, I am taking this post under the caption “Some Assistance Needed”, as genuine, and representative of a victim now deeply traumatized, with almost zero resources, staring at nowhere to go.
We have heard of $5 million dollars for the families of each of the fatalities from the fiery Mahdia disaster. But I do not recall hearing about what the plans are for those other children who were there and survived the horrors, especially the burnt and impacted in some way. In the event that I missed official announcements, I stand corrected. But some clear details about what the government has in mind should be helpful. Whether it does or not, I take the opportunity of the plight of our young sister, as conveyed in her plaintive post to appeal to the better angels in the government, civil streams, and individuals to respond with any helping hand that could be extended in a time of dire dread and need.
From the recent supplementary budget numbers, I detect that a few hundred million were specially earmarked to deal with the Mahdia fire victims, and the many related considerations that are sure to be prevalent right beneath the surface. My hope, my recommendation, is that the government considers setting up a fund that absorbs lifetime healthcare costs in most of its aspects for the survivors of that conflagration. It would do some justice to the surviving victims, who will always feel the heat, wake up with the sweats, hear in the echo chambers of their restless sleep the tormented screams of their neighbours in pursuit of an education, the door to a possibly better way of life. Except that in the infernal space of Mahdia, all doors were closed, locked tight. Nothing would furnish stronger confirmation of deep and authentic caring; nothing delivers greater proof of its generosity.
Since a classroom may bring back the worst of hauntings, I think that it is essential for these lost children to be nurtured slowly and patiently back to life through a comprehensive package of provisions involving some form of special schooling, counseling, possible working arrangements, and overall nurturing. Though sure to be expensive, the resources are available, and the government should not be skimpy or picky. Or dare to be so low as to be tricky. These child survivors have been in a war, and there may be many cases of the dreadful PTSD lurking, or already showing signs of taking hold. It seems that the PPP Govern-ment has the survivors in mind, and I would hope to the skies that every cent of every dollar that is set aside for these victims makes its way to those impacted so severely.
Separately, businesses, old and new, and local and foreign, are recording soaring profits. A helping hand would speak well of true partnering with a hurting environment made up of several remote communities, and stricken citizens, in the limitations of youth, in a time of tribulation, in an hour of grave need. I have heard a lot of pontificating; it is time for a little bit of practicing what was preached so impressively. This is the type of circumstance that demands our captains of industry and commerce all stand up and show who they are deep inside, and when no one is looking. Hopefully they are about others that are less fortunate, and other aspects in life, and are not about solely their own self-enrichment. The 15 year old, is but one face from a quiet, largely resigned, crowd of people, who were struggling before, and who are now, by force of circumstances not of their own making, struggling even more.
There remains the individual level, ordinary citizens. Their pain is our pain, and we must make her plight and that of her peers ours. Having dealt with piercing trauma more than once, I remember a repeated lesson: there comes a time when the door closes that one last time, that time when the phone stops ringing. In the swift aftermath of the Mahdia incinerator eruption, there was fulsomeness amid great fanfare. Those have receded to the routine demands of regular life. Now let’s all hear the cry of this frail daughter of Guyana’s soil. She could have been ours. Listen and lean forward with helping hands.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
