Stewartville, Guyana
| Stewartville | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
 Stewartville
|
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| Coordinates: 6°52′18″N 58°17′48″W / 6.871573°N 58.296572°WCoordinates: 6°52′18″N 58°17′48″W / 6.871573°N 58.296572°W | |
| Country |
 Guyana
|
| Region | Essequibo Islands-West Demerara |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Total | 2,500. |
| Time zone | UTC−04:00 |
Stewartville is a village district in Guyana on the Atlantic coast of West Demerara, just east of the mouth of the Essequibo River. There are four sections in the village: Stewartville Housing Scheme, Sarah Lodge, Stewartville Old Road and Stewartville Sea View.
Stewartville is about 10 miles (16 km) west of Vreed en Hoop, and is separated from the neighbouring community of Leonora by a trench. The community of Uitvlugt is immediately to its west. The village is populated by various ethnic groups. With the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1834, freedmen began making group and individual purchase of land in the village. By the 1860s many Africans had settled in the Creole village of Stewartville and were working on the West Coast Demerara estates. There is a record of four Sierre Leonians in 1874 petitioning from Stewartville for a grant of crown land to cultivate rice on Hog Island, Essequibo.
Later, estate workers originally from South India came to the coast and introduced their own traditions. The Indians mostly settled in areas between the Afro-Guyanese villages. A mosque was built in Stewartville around 1911. At times, in the 1970s, there were violent clashes between the ethnic groups. As of 2011 the village had a population of about 2,500.
Temperature is fairly steady throughout the year at between 25 °C (77 °F) and 27 °C (81 °F). There are two wet seasons in May–July and in December–January. Average monthly rainfall ranges from 104 millimetres (4.1 in) in September to 383 millimetres (15.1 in) in June, with about 2,670 millimetres (105 in) annually.
Stewartville has a secondary school, serving other communities in the region. The Unserved Areas Electricity Programme brought electricity to the community in 2005-2006. The school road at Stewartville was rehabilitated in 2009, but the job was done by an inexperienced contractor and was poor quality. In less than six months, potholes were starting to appear. In August 2011 it was announced that funding was being provided to upgrade roads in the area, including regarding the roads, road sides and drains, with 32,000 people expected to benefit directly. In February 2012 residents of Sarah Lodge were complaining that road works had started two months before and then stalled, and the unfinished construction was blocking the main road and causing serious flooding.
Erosion of the shore has long been a problem. In 1918 it was reported that repairs to the sea wall were needed. Excessively high tides on 16–17 October 2005 caused breaches of the sea defenses on West Coast Demerara. In November the government announced it had approved contracts for emergency repairs. $102M was to be spent on obtaining and laying boulders along the sea defense line at Stewartville and Leonora. The work was being funded from a 38.9 Euro grant agreement under the Eighth European Development Fund. In December 2009 a high spring tide caused waves that over-topped the sea wall and flooded several yards in Stewartville Sea View. No drainage system had been installed since the 2006 flooding. The wall was damaged near to the point where the flooding occurred.
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