English lessons help refugees and migrants make a new life in Guyana

Weekly language classes help hundreds remove that obstacle.

As the clock strikes 10 a.m, Dariannys and her two sisters rush to the computer tablet that they hope will be the key to unlocking a bright new future in their new home online English lessons.

With no English when they arrived in Guyana in late 2020, fleeing widespread food and medicine shortages and insecurity in Venezuela, the girls and their parents have struggled to adapt in Guyana, Venezuela’s English-speaking neighbor to the east. Dariannys, a bright 13-year-old girl who was once a top student in her school back home, hopes the lessons will help her get back into the classroom.

“We haven’t been able to register in school because we don’t speak the language,” said Dariannys. “I want to learn English so I can integrate in the community here.”

The English as a Second Language programme, run by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, with the support from the Pan American Development Foundation, through the NGO Voices GY, is providing language instruction to some 200 children and adults from Venezuela. This September, 86 students graduated from the second term of the course.

“They were super excited,” recalled the girls’ mother, Katy, after she registered them in the courses in March. “They used to help around the house, but I want them to get an education, to go back to a routine.”

The family are among an estimated 23,000 Venezuelans who have fled to Guyana in recent years. Darianny’s father came first, and the rest of the family followed around two years later, settling in the coastal Demerara-Mahaica region, outside the capital, Freetown.

“I was a bit frightened,” said Dariannys, recalling the journey by boat. “I had never traveled anywhere before.”

The family says they hope the lessons give the girls a strong enough foundation in English so that they are able to enroll in their local public school for the next academic year.

While Dariannys’ interest in the class is largely academic, for her fellow virtual classmate, Josue, 10, the motivation is mostly social.  

“I have learned to introduce myself and I get to meet other kids and play with them,” he said with a grin.

The arrival of Venezuelans, many of them school-aged, has stretched Guyana’s education infrastructure.  The capacity of schools is limited, especially in remote areas, where many of the Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the countries have made their homes. In addition, there is only a very small pool of bilingual English-Spanish teachers, meaning that the language barrier tends to continue to pose a serious challenge.

“Learning the local language is fundamental for displaced people when they first arrive to a new country,” said Samantha Bipat, UNHCR’s Assistant Education Officer in Guyana. “It not only allows them to build meaningful relationships with the host community members, but it opens the doors for refugees to get the education they need to foster their life-long dreams.”

Dariannys dreams of becoming a football player, a construction engineer or a lawyer, like her grandfather. She knows that school is key to reaching any of these goals and is committed to pursuing her education.

“Every day, we should make an effort to complete our education because it will help us make something of ourselves and to fight for our dreams,” she said.