Oluatoyin Alleyne

To effectively fight the scourge of domestic violence it must be treated and given the same attention HIV/AIDS has gotten, says Justice Roxanne George who has also called for a cost to be placed on this rising epidemic as has been done with the virus.

Known as one of the gateways to the interior, Itaballi Landing is a small mining and logging community perch-ed on the bank of the Essequibo River and a short boat ride from Bartica.

A well-known Guyanese educator and poet is advocating continual classroom training for teachers as a means of improving the country’s education system, since teachers are the foot soldiers of the system and if they are not good at what they do then the system will fail.

This is the thirteenth in our series on new parliamentarians Jaipaul Sharma is no politician and sees his work as a parliamentarian (MP) as a job which he plans to perform diligently to ensure that the people of the nation are represented and the government is held accountable.

A bail-out budget was how the opposition parties de-scribed the Donald Ramotar administration’s $192.8 billion budget yesterday and Opposition Leader David Granger said it lacks vision and does not cater to the needs of the poor.

Seven years after he left this country secretly, fearing for his life and under “tremendous stress”, former auditor general Anand Goolsarran has returned; he has no plans to return to his former position but wants to contribute to Guyana employing better accounting practices when dealing with taxpayers’ money.

Sydney Allicock – APNU This is the twelfth in our series on new parliamentarians A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) parliamentarian Sydney Allicock believes that the new dispensation in the National Assembly creates an avenue for politicians to “attack the issues rather than personalities and try to bring back that good name that Guyana really deserves.”

A lean clean government which is transparent in its actions and accountable to the nation is what new Alliance For Change (AFC) parliamentarian Dr Veerasammy Ramayya hopes the new dispensation in the National Assembly can achieve in the next five years.

Women of Itaballi Landing on the Essequibo River have appealed to the Guyana Women Miners Association (GWMA) to help to train young females in the community so they could find jobs and help others get ownership of their mining claims.

Women of Itaballi – a small mining and logging community on the Essequibo River – are calling on the authorities to take urgent measures to save the young girls of the village who they say are being sexually exploited by men including law enforcers.

It was the late Winston Murray who propelled attorney-at-law James Anthony Bond into the political arena and this new APNU parliamentarian is on a mission to work for and with the people to make Guyana a better place for all.

Depression is a serious illness that occurs in both the old and the young, but sadly it is an issue that is still taboo barring many from even attempting to discuss it, much less admitting that they might have a problem.

Sixty-one-year-old Lucille Posey has never owned a house but the Atlanta, USA grandmother would soon know what it feels like to be a home owner when she moves into her spanking new three-bedroom quarters, compliments of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity.

In downtown Atlanta, a casually dressed young woman with an impeccable hairstyle sits in an office chair filling out a form, the first step that would eventually see her transformed for the world of work.

Caribbean countries do not have the capacity to deal with the organised crime “that has crept into their societies…,” Organisation of American States (OAS) official Yasmin Solitahe Odlum, has said.

Fifty-three-year-old Ann Charles has been a miner for almost 30 years and for many of those years she has carried a heavy burden, one which grew heavier as the years went by.

At 72, Guyana’s best known panist Roy Geddes is still as passionate about steel pan music as he was when he was just 14 years old and developed a liking for the music form that originated in Trinidad & Tobago.

After 25 years, Dr Faith Harding has resigned from the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) central executive, saying that the party has sidelined her.

This is the eighth in our series on new parliamentarians Essequibian Cornell Damon has been a member of the PPP/C for over two decades and he says he would use his new appointment as a member of the National Assembly to continue the work of the party and represent the people of Region Two.

There is a call for more to be done to help families first of all accept that a loved one is HIV positive and secondly and most important, to give the infected person the support they need.