Guyana Relief Council has raised the bar for charities – Yvonne Hinds

TIMES INT'L

The Guyana Relief Council (GRC) is celebrating 19 years of assisting victims of natural and man-made disasters, which according to its chairperson, Yvonne Hinds has been quite an achievement.

GRC Chairperson Yvonne Hinds
GRC Chairperson Yvonne Hinds

She said since its establishment in 1994, the GRC has been able to make numerous interventions for persons.
“I think we’ve done wonderfully and we’ve raised the bar for charities, because now we’re not only giving you a handout, we also help out with tools of trade and so on. We help people to get their passport and documents back. We’ve even helped some of the fire victims procure land and some of them who have land, we help them get a house to build and help to furnish it,” Hinds posited.
She highlighted that the council’s most notable achievement thus far, was in 1998 when interior villages experienced effects of the El Niño phenomenon and had no access to crops or water.
She said the GRC intervened in this situation over a three-month period to get residents back on their feet.
“They were suffering from drought and most of their crops had died and the streams were dried up, so they couldn’t fish and they were on the verge of starvation. So we took charities and were able to help them,” Hinds recalled.
Another notable achievement was the GRC housing all the senior citizens from the Uncle Eddie’s home among other persons during the 2005 flood.
“We had babies, from one month, to seniors of 92 years old and we took care of them from December to around March,” the chairperson added.
Last year, 25 persons from Regions Three, Four, and Nine also received assistance, and persons affected by fires in Region Four were given supplies.
The GRC is a non-governmental organisation that receives funding from embassies and the diplomatic community. It has a membership of 40 and can accommodate about 100 persons in its shelter facility. In light of its 19-year anniversary, the GRC hosted a church service on Sunday, as Hinds noted that “you have to have divine intervention in everything you do”.

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