Reluctant Participant

Describing the diaspora as a “sleeping giant,” Professor Dhanpaul Narine of New York (NY) says more systems and policies need to be put in place to encourage overseas-based Guyanese to return home to invest.

On the second day of the five-day Diaspora Engagement Conference that is being held at the  Ramada Princess Hotel, East Bank Demerara, he said that politicians are not doing enough to tap the enormous resource of Guyanese living abroad.

The University of Guyana (UG) in collaboration with the University of the West Indies (UWI) yesterday launched the Centre for Caribbean Diaspora Engagement, at the conclusion of the five-day Diaspora Engagement Conference.

This followed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Vice-Chancellor of UG, Professor Ivelaw Griffith and Principal of UWI’s St Augustine Campus Professor Brian Copeland that would see a “bonding” of the two institutions.

AS the University of Guyana (UG) prepares to host a major inaugural diaspora engagement conference, plans are in train for the launch of a Diaspora Engagement Centre in December this year.

The initiative was announced by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Dr Ivelaw Griffith, who along with Mexico’s Ambassador to Guyana , Ivan Robero Sierra Medel and other university officials, briefed the media at the Mexican Embassy on Brickdam on Thursday of UG’s upcoming diaspora conference . The event is slated for July 23-28 at the Ramada Georgetown Princess on the East Bank of Demerara.