With a population of just over 1600 and spanning several acres of land, the Amerindian village of St. Cuthberts regarded as the cultural capital for Amerindians, is just one of many Amerindian villages not known to many Guyanese.The small community which was first named Pakuri and renamed to St. Cuthbert’s after the arrival of Anglican Missionaries in 1889 has been in existence for over two hundred years, yet any Arawak elder in the community will tell you that living there was never really the plan.“We used to live by the riverside but due to flooding we had to seek higher grounds and that’s how everyone came to St. Cuthberts,” revealed 80 year old Charlotte Oselmo who is the last surviving relative of the first Toshao and founder of the village, Johnson Bernard.Mrs. Oselmo revealed that upon first settlement in the village, it was so small that the entire “community” lived in such close proximity it was known as a circle. It was a very close knit community back then and strangers were not as readily accepted as they are today. Most marriages were arranged with distant cousins in an attempt to keep the bloodline pure. Even today, with the flexibility of marrying from outside of one’s own village, everyone would still boast of being related to each other. “All of us live here, we is one family.”The Amerindian community which is now under the care of a new Toshao,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, Lennox Shuman, who stressed the need for the preservation of their culture as it is evident that their traditions are dying. The Arawak dialect has now been replaced by Guyanese creole English as the young residents do not see the importance of learning their native language. Only a handful of persons in the village was said to be able to speak the Arawak dialect.“There used to be programmes available for teaching of the (Arawak) language but they don’t bother with it anymore.”Mrs. Oselmo revealed that although she would like to witness such a programme being re-established in the community as their traditions are rapidly being lost, it all comes down to the young people and if they wish to learn.The village of St.Cuthbert’s however, although beautiful appears to have fundamental problems in terms of the development of human resources. Many years ago, it was almost traditional for children at the age of 11 to drop out of school and get involved in farming or domestic work,Wholesale Jerseys China, depending on their gender. This practice has drastically declined over the years but it is still quite evident in the small community.It was observed that the village possessed very few young men. One villager, Clifton Shewan,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, explained that this was due to the fact that there were no jobs for youths in the community. “Most of the girls would stay and do craft or do domestic work but the boys does leave and get into mining and lumbering and these things. The ones who stay do their small scale farming.” Availability of lands is also an issue in the community, as there are not enough lands to do large scale farming which could serve to both sustain the villagers and earn them a profit.“Sometimes if we want make cassava bread and these things we does have to buying cassava from other people cause we don’t have enough lands to grow these things.”Although transportation to get in, out and around of the community is accessible, it is hoped that in the near future it would be easier than it currently is, especially for the school children.A female resident of the community who asked not be identified revealed that the health and education systems in the community are absolutely deplorable. No effort is being made to provide the schools in Indigenous communities with trained, educated staff for these institutions. “In the hospital we have one doctor, Shivanie Hendricks who is one of our own people. She went and study and come back to serve her people. We are thankful for her yes but she is the only doctor in this village and it is just not sufficient for the population. We have one medic and one community health worker,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, we need more cleaners for the health centres and we also need a midwife. Also, there is never enough medication for everyone in the community.”There are three schools within the village of St. Cuthberts, one for each level of education. It was revealed that there is one trained teacher in the secondary school, three trained teachers at the primary level and no trained teachers in the nursery school.“It’s really bad ‘cause we want to see our children perform but if they’re not getting the opportunity to do so because they lack trained,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, qualified teachers