New racial harmony campaign to be launched this weekend
Stabroek News
August 16, 2002
A new campaign to promote racial harmony under the slogan "Creating A Race-Free Chain" will be launched this weekend by the Rights Of Children (ROC) organisation.
The Race-Free Chain allows for each person to reach out and contact others of another race. Speaking at a press conference yesterday at their headquarters on Hadfield Street, ROC member Anna Florendo contended that if thousands of Guyanese should link up they can transform their relations in the country.
The centrepiece of the new campaign, Florendo said, is a packet of three "Race-Free Chain" postcards, and 40,000 cards have been made up into packs of three each.
Explaining the new campaign, Florendo said that the person who first gets the pack keeps the first postcard. He/she would then hand the packet to a person of another race, who keeps the second card and then hands over the third card to yet another person of another race.
The idea behind the exercise is that as the pack changes hands and each person has to explain the idea of a "Race-Free Chain", new links are being made with people of other races.
In previous campaigns, Florendo said, ROC concentrated on not offending other people, not discriminating, and not speaking badly about other races. However, this new campaign challenges people to take a more positive and active role. It also encourages Guyanese to reach out and make contact with people of other races.
Florendo said that citizens are challenged not to give the cards only to people they already know, but to persons whom they do not speak to.
Moreover, each person who keeps a card commits themselves to undertake one of the following activities: make a special effort to meet and to talk to persons of another race, speak positively about people of other races, bring along a person of another race to an activity you normally do with your own, object to racial fabrications and exaggerations made in your presence, and also assist any person who is being taunted, harassed or threatened because of race.
The campaign will be launched this weekend and about 7,000 cards will be distributed today at mosques, 7,000 through supermarkets tomorrow and some 20,000 through churches on Sunday.
Like previous campaigns, "Making Guyana A Race-Free Zone" , "Hands On Harmony", and "Seven Steps To One Love", the focus is on resisting racial divisions.
"This is your chance to join thousands of us to transform relations between races in Guyana. The "Race-Free Chain" allows you to reach out and touch the lives of other people. Remember the more the links, the stronger the chain. Let's celebrate racial diversity, (and) not be afraid of it," Florendo declared.