About SFCD

Goals

1. To encourage and support the educational and moral upliftment of residents in target communities.

2. Provide recreational facilities for sports development and to encourage positive social behaviour among youths.

3. Reinforce better family values by using religion as its foundation.

4. Reduce the incidence and impact of drug abuse by encouraging self-worth and self- development.

5. Facilitate the establishment and operation of small business ventures as a means of self-employment.

6. Provide skills training in various job-related areas.

7. Reduce the cost of basic commodities through cooperative efforts of the members of the Club and associated organisations.

8. To provide a supporting and enabling environment for persons affected by HIV /AIDS, STIs, and their families, while executing community responsive projects/ programmes.

9. Provide visionary leadership for community development by encouraging community initiative, democratic participation and mobilization of community resources for responsive actions to reverse the decline in the quality of life.

10. To support families and children at risk with responsive support, care, empowerment opportunities and an enabling environment to cope with social issues.

11. To establish a “COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENTAL VILLAGE” with modern and appropriate facilities for training of grass root developers, youths and women in Guyana, the Caribbean and further a field.

Making dreams a reality

The members of the St. Francis Community Developers believe there is no limit to what they can do for their constituents. Though their plans are firmly grounded in community work, their vision projects beyond the boundaries of Guyana to the Caribbean.

A five-year multi-million dollar project launched in 2004 aims at establishing an entity that can offer empowerment opportunities to ordinary persons who have the desire to contribute to their community and fight underdevelopment.

It is envisaged that `The Community Empowerment Complex and Development Village’ will be the first and only training facility in Guyana and the Caribbean that will offer training in community development and management to youths, women and community developers who lack high academic achievement.

One of the ultimate aims is to create a new generation of trained community developers who can access funds and resources to assist governments to better the living conditions of residents. The NGO can also retain its own experienced team members, since they can finally be able to fully utilise their acquired skills to serve others.

The Training and Empowerment Village will be set on ten acres of land in the Portuguese Quarters, Port Mourant, Corentyne, Berbice, Region Six, Guyana.

The project will be executed under the distinguished patronage of former West Indies Cricket Captain and current International Cricket Council (ICC) Match Referee Mr. Clive Hubert Lloyd and his wife, Waveney, who both visited Guyana in November two years ago for the launching. They were engaged in a series of activities and public engagement to publicise project.

The Village, now at an embryonic stage, is just a huge tract of land on which sits a solitary structure. On completion, however, The Village will boast 16 major structures - an administrative complex, a convention centre, a kitchen and catering building, two living quarters, a non-traditional skills training complex, a hotel, classrooms, a social life skills centre, a musical development centre, a distribution/micro credit complex, a research and development centre, a marketing and co-op shop, power generation plant, a museum on the Club, and recreational areas.

The project will be physically implemented between 2006 and 2009. The SFCD said it will utilise its uniqueness, grassroots experiences, impressive human resources, donor support and “divine intervention” to achieve this unique project.

According to St. Francis, all the facilities in The Village will be established to international standard and centrally located to ensure the best service is offered for training.

“This project would reverse the situation where hardworking groups who lack the skills required to access donor funding are given a level playing field or better possibilities to gain attention for funding. Today all donors are requiring financial reports, audited statements, comprehensive project documentation, sustainability efforts, justification of objectives, long term plans, professional management, accountability to beneficiaries, inclusiveness/broad base representation, confidential relationships and the list goes on. To everyone’s surprise, no one teaches people how to acquire these skills, especially the poor and not too educated developers who want to make a difference. St. Francis would utilise 20 years of experience to reverse this lack of opportunity through the establishment of the Village,” the group said.

What I am is God’s gift to me and what I make of myself is my gift to God