Prior to 2015, when extractable petroleum was announced as discovered within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ ) of this small South American country, Guyana was not widely known globally. In fact, we were often confused with Ghanaians from the continent of Africa.
Stories of Guyana now make primetime spots and headlines more than occasionally across international cable networks and publications.
But before all the oil, the dizzying economic growth rates, the historic rates of foreign investment, the unmitigated flow of Venezuelan refugees across the border that Guyana shares with Venezuela, and the sudden and urgent resurgence of Venezuelan interest in reclaiming the Essequibo region, there was and continues to be a small group of people who live within the 83,000 square miles of Guyana’s territory. We are called Guyanese!
Since 1966 when Guyana earned independence from the British, though a naturally beautiful and resource rich nation, periods of political unrest and instability, economic stagnation, and poverty forced hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Guyanese to flee their homeland – legally and illegally – in search of “betterment” as would call it, in places like the Caribbean region, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, countries in Africa, and Asia.
This consistent and heavy outward flow of Guyanese to various countries across the world led to the formation of a sizable global diaspora with strong familial, communal, political and economic interests in and ties to the homeland.
In fact, in the six decades since independence in 1966, Guyana’s population only grew about 300,000 to 400,000 people or 58.07% (from about 648,646 – an estimated 1,025,334 at the end of 2025), according to the Bureau of Statistics.
Guyana Tapestry is about that global community of Guyanese who have emigrated and continue to leave Guyana to make a home elsewhere, the Guyanese diaspora.
Guyana Tapestry is exploring the Guyanese diaspora and showcasing the vast array of cultural experiences that comprise the Guyana Tapestry.
Building community and relationships by telling the Guyanese diaspora story, facilitating honest, open, and even difficult conversations about the affairs of our community and home country, Guyana Tapestry harnesses the capacities of the diaspora to engage, inform, unite, and uplift the diaspora community and Guyana.
Why do we leave? Where do we go? How do we manage the transitions? How do we live? Do we still love Guyana? Can we contribute to her healing and development?
Guyana Tapestry envisions a global Guyanese diaspora that maintains strong familial, communal, economic, and political ties to the homeland, and is aware of the affairs that concern her; that actively promotes Guyanese culture through community engagement that seeks to elevate every Guyanese at home and abroad.
Guyana Tapestry aims to rediscover Guyanese who emigrated from the homeland by creating a strong community that stretches across the global diaspora. Guyana Tapestry seeks to unite the Guyanese diaspora and serve as an impetus for broader engagement through information, education, and conversation about the historical, cultural, and social affairs of the diaspora community.
The Guyanese diaspora in London increased after the end of World War II, when some of those who volunteered to serve in the British Armed Forces opted to settle in the United Kingdom. Guyanese were part of the great postwar West Indian immigration stream to the United Kingdom. The Guyanese diaspora in the United States was also growing, with a majority settling in New York.
The Facilitator is a Guyanese national who lives and works in the diaspora, in the U.S. for over two decades. As a student and academician, an educator, a journalist, a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the recipient of the Godfrey Chin Prize for Heritage Journalism, Pelham brings a rounded resume and a balanced approach to the diaspora research and storytelling. Driven by a proud sense of national identity, a commitment to supporting poverty eradication, economic development in the homeland, and the belief that the diaspora contains the bulk of Guyana human capital to support development, Guyana Tapestry engages the diaspora.
Welcome to a glimpse of the incandescent fabric that is Guyana and Guyanese, the Guyana Tapestry.
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