Iwokrama in historic engagement with blind, disability community

A team from the Iwokrama International Centre this week held an interactive session with members of the Guyana Society for the Blind and other disability groups. The encounter was part of a goal to ensure that the model of sustainable use of the rainforest is understood by all Guyanese.

The engagement, held last Thursday at the Guyana Society for the Blind on High Street, Werk-en-Rust, Georgetown, was historic in that it was the first such event with the blind, disability community in Guyana, Iwokrama said.

Using tactile and auditory methods, the Iwokrama team, led by tropical forest ecologist Dr. Raquel Thomas, helped participants understand the vision of the Iwokrama Centre. It allowed them to be aware of some of the animals and trees found in the Iwokrama Forest. Ganesh Singh, Public Relations Officer and Programme Coordinator for the Guyana Council of Organisations for People with Disabilities, which organised the workshop, praised Iwokrama for being willing to reach out almost immediately once the need was realised. Mr. Singh, who is blind, also serves as a Board Member and Coordinator of the CXC Programme with the Guyana Society for the Blind.

Dr. Thomas also highlighted that the forest is co-managed between Iwokrama and 20 indigenous communities surrounding the forest, because the indigenous people are the real owners of the forest and their traditional knowledge, together with that of the scientific community, is what will lead to Iwokrama fulfilling its mandate.

Those who attended the workshop were between the ages of 15 and 55. They included persons who are blind, visually impaired or have other physical disabilities.

Iwokrama plans to reach out to other groups and school which work with people with disabilities; and expressed appreciation to Conservation International-Guyana and Protected Areas Commission for providing some of the educational aids for the exercise. The Iwokrama International Centre (IIC) was established in 1996 under a joint mandate from the Government of Guyana and the Commonwealth Secretariat to manage the Iwokrama forest, a unique reserve of 371,000 hectares of rainforest “in a manner that will lead to lasting ecological, economic and social benefits to the people of Guyana and to the world in general”.

The forest is zoned into a Sustainable Utilization Area (SUA) and a Wilderness Preserve (WP) in which to test the concept of a truly sustainable forest where conservation, environmental balance and economic use can be mutually reinforcing.

The IIC collaborates with the Government of Guyana, the Commonwealth and other international partners and donors to develop new approaches and forest management models to enable countries with rainforests to market their ecosystem services whilst carefully managing their resources through innovative and creative conservation practices.

(Kaieteur news)