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They met with the elderly at Uncle Eddie’s Home and children of the Guyana Red Cross Convalescent home. Singh said they had time to meet many people, includ-ing the homeless, and they interacted with them. “We carried hampers for them

and we spoke to them,” she added.

Apart from that stu-dents also took field trips to Baganara, Fort Island and Bartica. Singh said, “We went in boats, we went ca-noeing, we had lunch to-gether – all of us – we played

games and so on. It was real fun.”

Alves explained that 23 sec-ondary school graduates have already been chosen for the ap-prenticeship that will restart this October. The students were chosen by their head-teachers. Alves mentioned that

quite a few graduates of the pro-gramme have been employed at Republic Bank. This year, two or three students may also be given that opportunity.

Entertainment for the grad-uation was provided by the Marigold Choir from the Brickdam Cathedral.

25 graduate...

Jonestown memorial...“With the memorial,

we can actually see their names, run our hands across the names, see they’re en-graved in stone the same way they’re engraved in our hearts,” Wilson said.

However, there is one name some people did not want to see engraved at all, Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones. A Southern California pastor who lost 27 family members at Jonestown sued to block the memorial, but last week, a superior court judge sided with a group of memorial supporters in-cluding Jim Jones’ son, say-ing the service should go on with Jones’ name etched in stone.

For many, the mass murder-suicide in 1978 tar-nishes otherwise happy memories from life on the commune in Guyana.

“Unfortunately, Jim Jones became a madman and he destroyed all those lives,” survivor Herbert Newell said. Newell has 11 family members on the me-

morial and says Jones’ name should be among them.

“I don’t see why not. He was a part of it. He was a leader of it, but people go wrong you know, in life. All of us wouldn’t have been there if it wouldna been for him,” he said. The faces of those who died in Jonestown may seem like distant memories, but not for this group.

“52, and after all these years, I realised there was something I needed to do, I wanted to do, and I didn’t know what it was. I want-ed to say goodbye and now I can,” Juanell Smart said. “Goodbye mom, goodbye Uncle Job, and goodbye my beautiful children.”

Even with the memorial’s unveiling Sunday, the con-troversy goes on. Lawyers are expected to meet this week to try to reach a settle-ment between the cemetery and a pastor who says she had the rights to build a me-morial without Jim Jones’ name on it. (East Bay News)

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This is the second of a three-part series featuring the wives of the three main presidential contenders. Today, we feature Mrs Sandra Granger, wife of People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) presidential candidate David Granger

By Janelle Persaud

When a person re-tires, he or she ex-pects to relax with

their loved ones close by. But this is not the case for Sandra Granger. The 62-year-old mother of two re-tired in 2009, but with her husband, Retired Brigadier David Granger contest-ing for the highest office in the land, his campaigning makes that nigh impossi-ble.

Sandra Granger nee Chan-A-Sue has been mar-ried since May 1970 to David Granger. “I start-ed out as an army wife and within a week or two of be-ing married I was left on my own, so you either become very independent or you be-come needy,” Mrs Granger told Guyana Times. “This is not new to me.”

Being a career wom-an, she chose the former. The multilingual teacher taught her two daughters Han Ruth and Afuwa, now 40 and 38 respectively, to be equally independent and self-sufficient.

Mrs Granger was schooled at Sacred Heart Primary and St Joseph High School. She later ac-quired two undergradu-ate degrees, one in English Literature and the oth-er in Portuguese from the University of Guyana be-fore getting her masters in Brazilian Literature from the University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania on a scholar-ship.

Mrs Granger lectured at UG and worked many oth-

er places, including Radio Demerara now NCN Radio, but she spent the final 18 years of her working life at the Caricom Secretariat. When she retired in 2009, she had worked her way up to programme manager of conference services at the regional body.

Having worked with the West Indian Commission and visited the entire Caribbean to get input from citizens on where they wanted the regional group-ing to be in the 21st cen-tury, Mrs Granger is well placed to comment on the state of regional integration that has come in for scru-tiny recently. She believes that Caricom has achieved much for the people of the region, but noted that some of the challenges come with the change in political lead-ers, among other issues.

Despite this, the retired Caricom employee believes that countries in the region should stick together. “As small and vulnerable states

dealing with the harsh re-alities of a globalised world, they have their strength in their combined votes and bringing their skills togeth-er,” she opined.

Mrs Granger also be-lieves that the free move-ment of skills has been a good way to help push this united agenda. However,

she pointed to the need for the relevant qualifications to enjoy this right as af-forded under the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME)

She described her lengthy career as ‘fulfill-ing’. Given this hard work during the frequent absenc-es of her husband, one may question: How did she cope? “Well my husband has nev-

er refused to rub my legs or my back when I needed him to,” she said with a chuckle. The only challenge for her as the wife of a presidential candidate is being cautious when speaking, for fear that her remarks could be inter-preted incorrectly. The pro-spective First lady is known

for speaking her mind.Mrs Granger, who is flu-

ent in two foreign languag-es – French and Portuguese, expressed the view that knowledge of more than one language is important as it has many advantag-es. As such, she believes that foreign languages should be taught early in schools, with emphasis on

Portuguese, given the blos-soming Guyana/Brazil bi-lateral relations. “I think our children should start from primary level to learn Spanish or Portuguese...any child who learns a sec-ond language has a wider scope for moving ahead be-cause in the world we live in, we need our languages,” she added.

Women empowerment While, Mrs Granger

seems primed for the post of First Lady, it is a job she never anticipated. But if given the opportunity, said she would focus on the em-powerment of women and youth and seek to aggres-sively address unemploy-ment in Guyana.

She wants to give women the opportunity to be entre-preneurs and manage their homes at the same time. She pointed to the manufac-turing of local products such as guava cheese, sour drops, toffee and other candies,

and craft, as dead trades which she wants to revive. She would have profession-als work along with these women to outline standards and help source markets.

Economic empowerment of Guyanese women is what Mrs. Granger is mostly in-terested in; she declared that this group should not only be given the oppor-tunity to open businesses but given the skills to man-age their finances to ensure sustainability. “I also want to ensure that girls are edu-cated not only academically, so that they could achieve their full potential. In fact, I would like to see all young people get that opportuni-ty,” she pointed out.

Though in the back-ground, Mrs Granger stands by her husband in his polit-ical endeavours and would campaign on his behalf. “I would encourage them (citi-zens) because what I think he would bring to the posi-tion is a sincere love of his country and people and the desire to see them do well, to progress in life. And he will also bring his own in-tegrity because if he prom-ises to do something, he will do everything in his power to fulfil it.”

Granger was described as a person with great pa-tience and one who has re-spect for others. At home, a sense of humour is dis-played as he “plays practi-cal jokes” on his children and grandchildren. In his leisure time, he listens to music, mostly classical; he also reads a lot and plays chess – his favourite game.

I stand by my husband in his political endeavours – Sandra Granger

David and Sandra Granger Retired Brigadier Granger and his two daughters Han Ruth and Afuwa

“We are yet to do it”, he stated emphatically and con-tinued: “We still cannot take that small step to demon-strate that we are willing to walk the walk and talk the talk … we have not seen that commitment.”

With Guyana moving to enact legislation to prevent children from having access to tobacco products, it has been proven by the Global Youth Tobacco Survey that there is a growing number of young people who are us-ing the freedom that soci-ety offers to experiment with tobacco. “This has a good

chance of sentencing you to a life sentence of waste (wast-ing money), you are inviting and creating ill health for yourself,” the health minis-ter told the gathering.

According to the survey the majority of young per-sons who smoke began do-ing so before reaching ten years old. “This is indicative of the challenge we face.” Dr Ramsammy lamented. And though the situation is not unique to Guyana, the min-ister believes that more can be done to fight the dread-ful scourge that plagues the country. He stressed that

chronic non-communicable diseases continue with sig-nificance in the public health sector and is responsible for many premature deaths.

But while the problem has been recognised it may be easier said than done as the ministry of health lacks the necessary resources to compete with the manufac-turers and distributors of to-bacco products. The finances necessary to educate the na-tion on the dangers associat-ed with the use of tobacco is not available. “Because the anti-tobacco message is being promoted by us with little re-

sources, we cannot match the tobacco promoting messages from the manufacturers and distributors because they have the money and capacity to produce those catchy, sexy messages,” he stressed.

Despite the challeng-es, all hope is not lost as the minister has dedicated himself to ensuring that by World No Tobacco Day 2012, Guyana can stand tall along-side developed countries like Australia by having legis-lation to prevent the sale of tobacco to children, and the creation of more smoke-free zones.

Ramsammy urges support...

...would campaign for him

How did she cope? “Well, my husband has never refused to rub my legs or my back when I needed him to,” she said with a chuckle.