By Danielle Swain
Sheik MV Nasseer has spent over 60 years of his life in service of others as an original member of the first Lions Club in Guyana.
Life at 96. What would you be doing?
Well, Sheik Mohamed Victor Nasseer, affectionately known as ‘Lion Vic’ by his Lions Club of Bel Air family, continues to give back to his community.
As the current Membership Chairperson, Lion Vic is responsible for the training and induction of new Lions to the club.
A ‘gyaff man’ as we Guyanese would call him, Nasseer, simply dressed in a grey cotton pathani suit with his burgundy Lion’s jacket weighed down with medals and pins, reflected on his life as a Lion.
Proudly painting vivid pictures of a Guyana that many would scantly recognise, he grew up in Bagotstown on the East Bank of Demerara.
“My mother was poor,” he said, “I wanted to go out and work to help her with the house.”
This meant giving up his secondary education, a sacrifice he readily made which led to his first steady job at 18.
“I remember the man good, Mr Greene,” shared Lion Vic, speaking of the man that gave him his break at the Local Authority.
“And since then, I have been serving in every field of endeavour, anything they had asked me to do, I do.”
In 1960, he joined the Lions Club of Georgetown. “I didn’t know anything about it, and I had to be trained, and I get to like it and it was for humanitarian reasons.”
Some of the humanitarian projects Lion Vic is particularly proud of in his 60 years of service are his work with the visually impaired, education, health and sports.
He credits ‘Lionism’ with letting him see the world, sharing with the News Room his front seat to history with stories from Japan, Chicago, Chile and even Grenada during the Maurice Bishop reign of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) eventually leading to the United States invasion in October 1983.
Despite all of this, what he is most proud of is helping spread Lionism across Guyana and the Caribbean and his continued recruitment of new lions.
With this in mind, he leaves this message for anyone who is thinking of joining: “You have to have character,” pausing as if to carefully choose his words.
“I am hoping, that those who come into the club, will appreciate and understand that we’re not looking for your money, we are looking for all members to give of their time.”
At 96 years old, this is something that Lion Sheik MV Nasseer wholeheartedly continues to do.
