Our leaders must come clean...

highest standard of leadership in this season! And we will not be afraid to call you out on your wrongdoings. I am serving notice. We must hand our children a better Guyana than the one that was handed to us. Guyana has enough for all 750,000 of us and more.

Albert Einstein said that ‘the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything’.

Back to the point of values and principles, leaders or anyone for that matter, cannot give out, what they do not possess therefore our leaders must come to positions possessing some fundamental values. One of those values must be an understanding and respect for the role of the institution of the family in any society.

Families in Guyana are perhaps at the lowest point we have seen or experienced. Single parenting is a huge challenge. Many studies have showed that many children who were brought up in single parent households face a high probability of becoming involved in crime, teenage pregnancy and falling victims to other social ills. Many persons committing crimes are between the ages of 15 – 25.

Most recently, we have seen a dramatic increase both in the number and the severity of ‘family violence’. It is clear that many of our people and families are experiencing difficulties in coping with challenges of life and much more needs to be done to assist families to cope. The family is the first place where a person learns coping skills; we need to strengthen families. However, a fundamental aspect is role modelling for not only young people but generally the people that you lead.

The next President and Prime Minister must be married. Emotional stability is extremely important for leaders at this level and we must hold our leaders to higher standards. If leaders have a gross instability in their own lives they more often than not, transfer that to the people and organisations that they lead, for e.g. through their decision-making and the range of considerations which inform their decision making and actions which can have long term impact on a society.

Finally, on another point of strong families, it should be a part of the medium to long term economic agenda to strengthen the institution of the family as a strategic development objective for increasing the population. The more stable families are, particularly in the Guyana context, the more likely they are to expand.

Yours faithfully, Audreyanna Thomas