The U.S Embassy here in Georgetown and the youth group, Youths For Guyana have teamed up in an ambitious campaign to clean up the country through volunteerism.
The “Guyana Shines” project was first launched two years ago as a clean up campaign targeting the Lodge and Tucville communities. It had as its objectives to motivate communities to encourage and foster positive changes. Now the project is being launched on a national scale with the aim of Keeping Guyana Beautiful.
On Sunday morning, U.S Ambassador Brent Hardt and other officials from the embassy joined volunteers from Youths For Guyana to launch the new chapter of the Guyana Shines project.
Over the past two years, the Youths For Guyana group has been moving through communities with their own clean up project, tackling one block at a time. The initiative caught the attention of the US Embassy and the Government of the United States through the local embassy has now decided to lend its support to the project through a grant that will assist the youth group and its volunteers to continue their beautify Guyana initiative. 
At the launching, U.S Ambassador Brent Hardt said the launch serves as “the next step in what will be a long-term process to change the environmental history of Guyana”. He added that the move to join forces to clean up and care for the environment, represents a significant step forward on the path toward maintaining a clean environment.
“A clean environment is important for public health, for maintaining Guyana’s extraordinary biodiversity , and for encouraging tourism development. It is vital for our generation and for those to come”, Ambassador Hardt noted.
He announced the awarding of a US$34,000 grant to Youths For Guyana to “carry the torch and build on the extraordinary work that their volunteers around the country have done to create a cleaner environment”.
President of Youths For Guyana, Orin Phillips said his group is honored to be the recipient of the US Government grant. He noted that there is the need for greater education about and care for the environment and for there to be a national effort to stamp out littering. According to Phillips, in the efforts to improve the environment by reducing litter in Guyana, the team behind Guyana Shines is prepared to work “feverishly” to help fix this issue.
Phillips said it all begins with a community clean up which could spread to communities across Guyana.
The U.S Ambassador and staff from the embassy joined the Youths For Guyana volunteers in their clean up exercise on Bent Street on Sunday morning.
As the sun moved through dark clouds above, the volunteers and the embassy officials and staff weeded parapets and cleaned drains while some residents of the area peaked from behind their curtains.
Getting citizens of the various communities to come up and play a role in cleaning up their environment may be one of the challenges that the project will have to face.
Under the project, the Youths For Guyana group is expected to launch a number of public relations campaigns about the environment and their efforts to beautify Guyana.
A number of local companies including Republic Bank and Caribbean Containers Incorporated have signed up to provide assistance to the efforts of the volunteers.
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