Youths promoting a race free Guyana Stabroek News takes the pledge Stabroek News November 30, 1999 Over 150 non-governmental organisations, government agencies, schools and churches have signed the Rights of Children (ROC) race-freezone pledge in ROC's campaign to lessen racial tensions in the country. As the campaign gains momentum, ROC members are hoping that by the end of the six-month campaign all groups, government and non-governmental organisations would have signed the pledge. Guyana Publications Incorporated, publishers of the Stabroek News and Sunday Stabroek last Thursday became the first media house to sign the pledge. Editor-in-Chief David de Caires signed on behalf of the newspaper. Members of ROC told Stabroek News that while no government ministry or political party had as yet signed the pledge, the Guyana Post Office Corporation was the first state entity to sign. The first banking institution to sign was the New Building Society (NBS), the first school was St Stanislaus College, the first church was Kingston Methodist and the first hospital was the Georgetown Hospital. However, they are bent on taking their campaign to every corner of the country. The race-free zone pledge began after ROC had conducted several workshops countrywide. Among the areas covered were Linden, New Amsterdam, Anna Regina, Santa Rosa, Lethem and Georgetown. The four members present at Stabroek News last week were Adler Bynoe, Tishana Sweatnham, Anna Florendo and Shanaza Ally, who are all University of Guyana students. ROC is a group of ten active young people. To enable them to take their campaign countrywide they said they would welcome any funding they could get. One of the burning issues which they said was highlighted during the workshops and which affected friendship was the race issue. Ally said that after the last general elections in 1997 many young people, including school children of all races, were afraid to walk the streets, some were afraid to attend school. She said that they felt insecure because this feeling was transmitted to them by their parents. During the elections, too, schoolchildren banded themselves together according to race because parents did not want their children to associate with children of other races, Florendo noted. Bynoe gave examples where children could not stay at their friends home during the elections disturbances because they were of different races and had to run to their homes because they felt their safety was threatened. Many even stopped speaking to each other. He felt that this was somewhat traumatic and should not recur in another election period. They are hoping that once children are told of their rights they will better be able to communicate with their parents and make them aware that issues of race can hinder not only personal relations but the country's development. In May this year at a regional workshop, Sweatnham said that ROC came up with its name and agreed that the race issue was the most pressing issue which needed addressing. They felt that as the older folks were set in their ways they needed to correct this attitude, hence promoting the campaign to declare Guyana a race-freezone under the theme `Holding onto Friendships'. In signing the race-free pledge, organisations commit themselves to eliminating racially-prejudiced attitudes and the forms of behaviour that flow from them. This includes pledging the organisation to oppose racially motivated acts of "avoidance of individuals or groups of other races; not wanting to talk to them or to meet them; verbal abuse such as speaking or joking negatively about other races; discrimination such as holding a person or racial group in low esteem, treating them badly, rewarding them less than others, boycotting and excluding them; violent abuse such as taunting, pestering, threatening, damaging personal belongings and harassing people from other races; inciting people to racially abusive behaviour by hate speech, and by fabricating, exaggerating or distorting stories; eliminating, isolating, banning, killing of entire racial groups". A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples