Local company seeking to boost skills of workforce
Seeing the need for members of the Guyanese workforce to provide the best services that they can, a local company, Professional Training, Employment and Consultancy Services, has been working to help workers develop their skills and themselves in the process.
Marlon Joseph, who is the founder of the company, did an assessment of the services in Guyana and found that much needed to be done to ensure the workforce reaches a desirable place, particularly given that the country is poised to become an international player as a major oil and gas producer. This led to the formation of the company to train persons in the “proper” ways to not only promote a business but themselves.
As a result, the company has developed different courses, which are administered through workshops, to meet the needs of individuals who seek to develop themselves and their businesses. Its courses include conflict resolution, emotional intelligence and creative problem solving skills, and stress management.
At a recent workshop participants were trained in business etiquette and protocol. The hostess, Sharon Houston, emphasised that being an advocate for a business or company meant being composed and giving off a presence that will encourage others to want to conduct business with them at all times. She emphasised posture, attire and greetings to the participants.
Joseph noted that the importance of mental health in the workplace is among the issued being focused on at the workshops. He noted that there is a growing awareness of mental health struggles and employees and even employers who may be experiencing such issues need a safe place to cope. He further said that while it can be a challenge, they are hoping that workplaces will understand how crucial it is for persons to be able to talk to others about how they feel. From family problems at home to issues at the workplace, it is vital that people keep track of their employees’ health, he added.
Along with mental health awareness in workplaces, Joseph said attention was also being paid to first aid training for the work force. He noted that if a medical
emergency arises at work, persons need to be able to provide some sort of aid until there is professional intervention.
He added that all of PTECS’s training programmes aim to provide persons with a solution to every possible difficulty that might occur in work places and most of them are in some way interlinked.
A workshop participant, Sheik (only name given), who is the head security guard at a local firm, said most of the workshops he has attended have impacted not only him but his colleagues, with whom he has shared what he learnt.
“Today’s workshop, for instance, we had a lot of role playing in it. It was etiquette actually and how you deal with persons when you’re coming in—like how I just met you, your posture, how I shake your hand. These little things, like when you go for a job. Your speech, the way you promote yourself,” he noted.
When asked what he would be taking back from the workshop, without hesitation he exclaimed, “First thing, the knowledge… the broad-base knowledge, and it is so cheap”. He went on to describe the workshop as dynamic, while saying that the information shared had every day application.
Another participant, who was also at a previous workshop that was focused on time management, said that it helped her to remind her of what she had already known, such as being on time and having goals set along with a time period to complete them and also examining how attainable they are. She said that as it relates to the etiquette workshop, what she has realised is that it is not just about being able to eat a certain way but how a person carries him or herself as well, both in and out of a business setting.
Participants at the workshop interacting with the hostess Sharon Houston
Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendants of Indenture is a collection edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine and published by the School of Advanced Study, University of London and Commonwealth Writers.
It was published in 2018 to mark the centenary of the abolition of the system of indentureship in the British Empire (2017 – 2020). The volume brings together, for the first time, writings by the descendants of indentured immigrants from across the Commonwealth. The editors describe it as “a unique attempt to explore, through the medium of poetry and prose, indentured heritage in the twenty-first century”. Last week, we selected a poem from this volume – “Chutney Love” by Gabrielle Jenella Hosein.
Among the editors, Dabydeen, born in Guyana, built an outstanding career at the University of Warwick in his adopted home, England. He is a Professor who served terms as Director of the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies, an avid researcher, critic, radio and television documentalist. As a foremost novelist and poet, he has won several prizes, including the Guyana Prize and the Commonwealth Prize.
Kaladeen is an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. She, too, is a prolific academic researcher who has done work on the system of indentureship that is at the core of this collection of work.
Ramnarine is an artist and a woman of letters: a musician, anthropologist and researcher of performance, politics and the arts. She is a Professor at Royal Holloway University of London.
They have drawn together in one volume, a mixture of established writers and new voices in poetry and fiction from right across the globe – from places where immigrants settled after joining the indentureship system between 1834 and 1917 when migration ceased. The system itself ended in 1920.
By that time, we learn from the volume in memory of the indentured migrants, more than a million of them left had India for several destinations during the 83-year period. The experience of working in an ignoble system is captured by these writers from South Africa, East Africa, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, Fiji, and the Caribbean – from Trinidad, predominantly – and from Guyana.
The work of Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming, an IndianCaribbean poet, fiction writer, artist and essayist, is an excellent example of work arising from the experience and ethos of the Indian culture reshaped by indentureship among the migrants. She is an engineer who has published several volumes and work in anthologies and journals.
The example of the poem in the collection We Mark Your Memory, selected here – “Sita and Jatayu”, is a much more accomplished piece than “Chutney Love”, the selection we discussed last week. While Gabrielle Hosein’s poem celebrates chutney music from a fairly limited perspective, Manoo-Rahming tackles a poem of Caribbean Indian heritage from a more profound depth.
It is now the season of Diwali (Deepavali), which is highly celebrated in the Caribbean, and most pronounced in Guyana and Trinidad. This is as fitting a poem as any to mark this festival, while observing the memory of those in the history of indentureship.
Diwali, with its theme of the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness, honours Lakshmi, the Goddess
Hof Light and Prosperity, who devotees invite into their homes and hearts with spectacular displays of lighted diyas. The artistry extends to a grand and even more spectacular exhibition of lights, images and symbols in the popular annual motorcade. Art is further shown off in the Rangoli – coloured rice drawings displayed on the ground highlighting Hindu images and symbols.
This poem is based on the story of Lord Ram (Rama) and Sita (Seeta) taken from the sacred text the Ramayana. But this story is integrated with intertextual cross-referencing between the Ramayana and the experience of Indian women under indentureship. Besides, Rama’s story is also linked to Diwali. Rama went into exile from his home and kingdom in Ayodhya. During that period Sita was abducted by Rawan (Ravana/Rawana) and Rama went into the island kingdom of Lanka to rescue her. Following his defeat of Rawan he returned home in triumph to reclaim his throne in Ayodhya. It was the darkest night of the year and the people of Ayodhya lit diyas to light his way as well as a show of welcome to him.
The story is a complex one, and Manoo-Rahming captures the abduction of Sita in the poem. When Rama went into exile, his wife, Sita and brother Lakshmana (Lakshman) went with him out of loyalty. The demon king Ravana plotted his tricks, using a golden deer to draw the two men out of the way, leaving Sita alone at home inside a protective circle drawn by Lakshmana. Ravana then came disguised as an old beggar asking for food. The kind-hearted Sita went to help him and was enticed to step out of the circle whereupon she was seized by Ravana.
The kidnapping was noticed by Jatayu, a very old vulture bird, who was king of the vultures. In his younger years he was feared for his strength and power, but at this time he was very old and weak. Yet he was courageous and determined to serve Rama and Sita, so he attacked Ravana, wounding him and putting up an extremely valiant fight, especially considering his twilight years. After a long, fierce battle, Ravana prevailed by chopping off Jatayu’s wing, leaving him mortally injured.
When Rama returned and found him, he was overcome with grief as well as gratitude to the bird for the fight he put up. The poem tells how “Rama granted mukti [a transcendent state]” to his loyal friend Jatayu. But by that time Ravana had already escaped taking Sita off to captivity in his kingdom in Lanka (present day Sri Lanka). Rama set about gathering help and resources to launch his attack, vanquish the demon king and rescue his wife.
Manoo-Rahming deliberately confuses the story from the Ramayana with the narrative and experience of indentureship. She draws a parallel between Sita as Queen, as the king’s wife, and Sita as an Indian woman suffering the experience of life on the plantation as a servant.
Jatayu is cast in the plantation experience as a bird always nearby offering protection, as he did in the Ramayana. Sita’s voyage to the West Indies is likened to an abduction, which Jatayu could not prevent, yet he is pictured there as keeping protective watch. ere we have in this poem a very good example of how this book of creative work marks the memory of the indentured labourers. It is a tribute to Sita with reference to Hindu mythology, and to the Indian woman in the plantation setting. It references the bravery of Jatayu and his mythical presence in the trees on the estate.
In similar fashion, the book itself is a tribute to the memory as the various poems, stories and works of prose capture several perspectives of the experience of Indian indentureship. The editors’ introduction set the stage with its historical background, setting the record right and placing the context of indentureship throughout history and in other places, while the selected works by the several authors play out the drama.
various office jobs. Her sons are labourers and they plant rice but after planting season, they do odd jobs.
Harry lives in the new scheme part of Richmond. Together the old and new schemes share five streets. At the time she moved in, she had no electricity, but this was supplied not long after. A member of the Universal Church in Anna Regina, Harry said the village has no churches but has a temple as many of the residents are Hindus.
Harry, who is a caterer, is self-employed. She has been doing this since 1991 and caters for weddings, birthdays and other special events. It was through her business that she was able to secure her home years ago. Her peak seasons are August and December when there are usually numerous weddings. She also sells fruit juice and because of where she lives, she often does not have to purchase fruits as her neighbours have trees laden with them.
Two sorrel trees brighten the yard with their red blossoms. “They should be ready in time for Christmas to make sorrel wine,” Harry said. “Christmas time here is very nice. The masqueraders would come around, there is a lot of food and the neighbours are always visiting each other, sampling each other’s food, cakes and wines. From small my parents don’t cook on Christmas Day so that remained a tradition with my family. We still bake and so, so there is always things to eat but the big cooking is left for Boxing Day. That’s when you would have family coming over.”
She shared that for years she dealt with floods, which reached as high as her knees. Over the last 15 years, Harry said, she has purchased more than 100 truckloads of dirt and she is still in need of more. At the beginning, she paid $3,000 per truckload but now a load is $6,000 while a load of sand is $10,000. The woman further said that since the sand is coming from nearby at Mainstay, she should be paying less.