Young Guyanese-Canadians spreading their wings

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

“Come aboard, join us and let us be a part of something big.” ~ John O’Dell

A group of young Guyanese-Canadians led by Mr. John O’Dell, and under the distinguished patronage of the Guyana Consul General Ms. Choo Anyin have established an organization called The Guyana Canadian Young Professional Organization here in Toronto,

The launch was held on Saturday, August 24^th, at the Consulate General of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, at 505 Consumers Road, Suite 707, Willowdale Ontario. This new organization’s main goal is to provide a forum for network and information sharing, promote Guyana’s culture and heritage here in Canada, and to shed light on the outstanding Guyanese professionals that are living here in Toronto.

Toronto Caribbean Newspaper spoke at length with both Guyana’s Consul General as well as Mr. O’ Dell about this brand-new organization and some of their plans going forward. Anyin who was appointed Consul General just over a year ago sounded excited about getting the organization on its feet, “I have been attending a number of Guyanese community events and one thing that jumped out at me, is that the membership of most of these community organizations are mostly mature folks. I thought to myself ,Guyana has a very vibrant bilateral relation with Canada who happens to be one of our major trading partners, but make no mistake our number one export to Canada is our skilled young professionals, so I wanted to give them a voice.”

“Since young people think and do things different from mature folks,” Anyin revealed, “I thought it best to give them a separate forum to voice their: opinions, thoughts and separate identity; it seemed it would best serve their purpose if we have a young professional organization for them exclusively.”

The chair  of the organization,  a negotiator by trade agreed with Anyin’s views, and when asked what his message would be to members  O’ Dell said, “To members this is going to be your platform. You are going to come and tell us where you want it to go, and what you want to see happen.”

O’ Dell pointed out that he and Anyin were very instrumental in making sure that all races of Guyanese are represented on the executive front, he said, “We are a non-political organization which is very important to us, therefore we take no political sides; it is an open door and all young professionals of Guyanese descent or Guyanese are welcome..”

Speaking of welcoming all,the idea took precedence as the Consul General reinforced the fact that Guyana is a land of six people namely: Europeans, Portuguese, Africans, Amerindians, East Indians, and Chinese, and as a result of this, “Unity and inclusiveness,”  Anyub said, “is very important for this young organization going forward, We have an array of professionals in our organization from: police officers, executive directors in charge of nursing homes, teachers, and lawyers; it really is the cream of the crop of young professionals.”

For more information on how you can become a part of this new group called The Guyana Canadian Young Professional Organization here in Toronto,  email:  gcypa.19@gmail.com.