FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Karen Hawes, Lee County Department of Human Services
(239) 652-7930

LEE HUMAN SERVICES EMPLOYEE TO PARTICIPATE
IN GUYANA MISSION

FORT MYERS, Fla. (May 9, 2003) - Lee County Human Services employee Roger Mercado has been chosen to participate in a social work mission to Guyana, South America to identify community needs and develop actions plans.

The mission, in conjunction with Florida Gulf Coast University's College of Professional Studies, will be from June 7 to 14.

Mercado is neighborhood relations coordinator for the county's Department of Human Services. In that position, he helps administer the county's Neighborhood Building Program, which supports and revitalizes lower income neighborhoods. He also has been active in Neighborhood Accountability Boards, an alternative juvenile justice model that incorporates community service and local solutions to criminal activity.

Mercado will help local social work professionals in Guyana develop formal skills for community organizing and in helping communities identify their assets and formulate action plans for improvement.

FGCU has worked closely with the University of Guyana on this projects and on this trip the group also will be meeting with the Director of the Welfare Division of the Hinterland Welfare Program to discuss what kind of partnership can be forged to assist within the interior of the country.

Guyana facts from CIA World Factbook:

Guyana is located in Northern South America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Suriname and Venezuela.

Originally a Dutch colony in the 17th century, by 1815 Guyana had become a British possession. The abolition of slavery led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured servants from India to work the sugar plantations. This ethnocultural divide has persisted and has led to turbulent politics. Guyana achieved independence from the UK in 1966, but until the early 1990s it was ruled mostly by socialist-oriented governments. In 1992, Cheddi JAGAN was elected president, in what is considered the country's first free and fair election since independence. Upon his death five years later, he was succeeded by his wife Janet, who resigned in 1999 due to poor health. Her successor, Bharrat JAGDEO, was reelected in 2001.