Empower Guyana founder working to share knowledge
Growing up at La Grange, West Bank Demerara, empowerment advocate, Amar Panday wanted to help people to develop themselves so they in turn could help others. Having gained some experience in knowledge sharing and advocacy in the world of work he set about creating the organisation Empower Guyana Consultancy (EGC) with a three-fold mission to achieve his ambitions.
In an interview, the 38-year-old Panday told Stabroek Weekend, “I see my role in life as an educator, as a facilitator. So in all the jobs I held, I have always gravitated towards sharing and transferring of knowledge.”
A former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rights of the Child Commission (RCC), Panday said, “I took on the role of CEO as I saw it as a way to make a contribution to the education and protection of children in Guyana. It was another avenue in which I was able to share and transfer knowledge.”
During the third quarter of 2020, he left the RCC to form EGC because he believed all of the things he was doing or was supposed to be doing at the RCC he could achieve effectively using his brand.
“At the RCC, I had to work along with the dictates of the commissioners and how they wanted things done. I believed I could do and succeed with my brand. That was the genesis of Empower Guyana.”
Panday worked with the RCC from December 2013 to September 2020, then went on to establish EGC.
Under Panday’s stewardship at the RCC, training of stakeholders to better equip them with the knowledge to protect the interests and rights of children, was emphasised.
“We shared with sector stakeholders the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and local laws relating to the protection of children. In spite of a number of constraints, I took my mandate seriously. I went out and got a lot of things done. We implore of them to take their responsibility seriously to protect and secure children’s rights and interests.”
While he did not detail what the constraints were, he said, “Under my charge we took the work of the RCC in all the regions and sub-regions of Guyana. Prior to assuming the office of CEO, this had never occurred. We formed relationships with educators, Indigenous village councils, neighbourhood democratic councils, regional democratic councils, and police divisions in all the regions. In far flung areas, we put in place mechanisms to protect the interests and rights of the child.”
Because of the training and the relationships, the RCC fostered with the Guyana Police Force, he said, “We were able to expedite and treat matters of child abuse very seriously, which was what they were supposed to do in the first place. Because of my intervention and the systems that I put in place, the relationship that the RCC nurtured with the police, children’s interests were put in a better place.”
Through the Office of the Prime Minister, under the tenure of Moses Nagamootoo, Panday said, the RCC held workshops with all the radio broadcasters in Mabaruma, Annai and Lethem on the UN Convention.
“What I am particularly proud off was on completion of the training with broadcasters of Radio Paiwamak at
Annai in Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo), the broadcasters took the UN [Convention] and translated it into the Makushi language and they read it out on the radio station. This was the first time that I know in Guyana that an international human rights treaty was translated into an indigenous language.”
Satisfied with the work he did at the RCC, Panday said, “This and work I did at SKYE [Skills and Knowledge for Youth Employment] project and in teaching, have led me to what I’m now doing.”
Panday grew up at La Grange and attended Malgre Tout and Vreed-en-Hoop primary schools and later on Brickdam Secondary and St Stanislaus College. Between 2003 and 2008, he first completed a diploma in public communications at the University of Guyana (UG) and went on to pursue a degree with double major in English and History. He also obtained a Master of Arts degree in
Human Resources Development from the University of the West Indies.
Following his period of study at UG, Panday held several jobs including brief stints as a reporter with Stabroek News and with the Guyana Defence Force. He taught at Mae’s Schools for a while then worked for a year with the USAID-funded SKYE project, which targeted young people who were deemed vulnerable.
On the SKYE project, Panday was involved in training young people in Region Three- West Demerara/Essequibo Islands in soft skills, such as how to conduct oneself in a job, how to interact with peers, and dealing with conflict resolution, among other areas that would serve them throughout their lives.