After GuyTIE
talked about and showed me plants they used for generations to manage and even cure different ailments that afflicted them. I spent the early years of my life full time with them so I learnt a lot of things. One of the most fascinating things to me was the aspect of either having no hair or having lots of it. It is funny since the having no hair remedies came from my maternal grandmother and having long hair remedies came from my paternal grandparents.”
Afterwards, she produced a photograph of the top of her eighty something year-old grandfather’s head, on which an experimental batch has already been tested. Excitedly, she points to a few strands of black hair which she says have been re-growing since the treatment to his scalp began. Modest though that development is, Sevanie believes that it represents a major breakthrough moment for the project.
Up until now, the project has been significantly supported through an arrangement under which her research pursuits benefit from access to the laboratory and technical staff of the New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (GPC). That apart she acknowledges the support of Professor Emanuel Cummings of the University of Guyana whose intervention made the support of the NGPC possible.
Sevanie is understandably excited but determined – at least for now – to keep both feet on the ground. More than that she is mindful of the fact that the assorted plants and worms that lie at the heart of what she firmly believes will be a product of profound global significance have their origins in her broader Amerindian heritage and in Guyana’s rich botanical history. It is the potential cultural, economic and scientific significance of what, for Sevanie, is a singleminded preoccupation that has spawned a fervent desire to engage both the President and the country as a whole.