Children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman famously said, “Education is for improving the lives of others and leaving your community and world better than you found it,” and it is on this foundation that Baramita’s first female Toshao intends to reshape the lives of villagers.
The small village of Baramita is located in the Barima-Waini region some 20 miles west of Matthews Ridge, and it is one of the most populated Amerindian settlements in Guyana. The village is predominantly occupied by the Carib tribe and recently they broke away from traditional male leadership and elected their first female Toshao. The community is said to have some 23 settlements with approximately 3000 persons living there.
Thirty-two-year-old Sharmain Rambajie said she was elated at the chance to serve her people, but noted that that opportunity came with heavy responsibilities, since Baramita has its fair share of issues. The village is said to have one of the highest suicide rates in Guyana coupled with the highest teenage pregnancy and school dropout figures. This is attributed to the effects of the mining industry, which saw coastlanders invading the community and wreaking havoc. According to a study titled “Impact of Mining: Survival Strategies for Interior Communities in Guyana” conducted by the Guyana Human Rights Association, Baramita has a lot of social ills with very little being done to address them. It identified that girls as young as 14 were being raped, forcing them to take measures to protect themselves.
In addition, because of those issues and the fact that girls are being impregnated at an early age, the school dropout rate is extremely high compared to other communities.
The need to combat these issues and to ensure that the people of Baramita are positioned to take advantage of every developmental opportunity is what inspired Rambajie to run for the office of Toshao. 
“You always hearing people talking bad thing about Baramita, but it is not like that really. I have three girls and I want to be a role model for them. We never had a woman Toshao before nor did they compete for Toshao and this is the first time and we all would see like how men would lead, so the people want to see how a woman would lead and they nominated me,” Rambajie told me.
When I asked Rambajie how she planned to address the issues plaguing her people and clear up the misconceptions about Baramita, she said that the dominant trait of the Carib people was their ability to persevere and battle their way through every situation. It is with that Carib spirit that she intends to lead her people into the 21st Century.
Rambajie was born and raised in Baramita and remembers growing up being tough because they were not allowed to write Common Entrance (now the National Grade Six Assessment) which meant that their education was limited. The children never got scholarships, but now that has changed and they are allowed to sit the NGSA and would get scholarships to attend secondary school out of the village.
“It is now developing because nobody was paying any attention to Baramita because of how it is and now it is developing. I became Toshao because I wanted to help develop my community and the people of Baramita like in leading and so on and for the place to become a better place.”
Rambajie said that she planned to introduce sports as well as advocate for a secondary school in the village so that children would be more motivated to attend school. She also plans to push for more scholarship opportunities to be made available so that they can have their own doctors, teachers and health workers.
“If we get a secondary school then the children would not be going to other places like Mabaruma and Port Kaituma and they would get a secondary education right in Baramita. They would also get a chance to write CXC,” she said.
Rambajie urges all young girls to take up the mantle of leadership and make the world a better place for themselves and future generations. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
