Spiralling child abuse in Guyana has prompted two local non-governmental organisations to join forces to help abused kids and root out the problem.
Members of the head table at yesterday’s launching of the Pickney Project at the Pattensen Community Centre. From left to right: Omattie Seaforth, Vidyaratha Kissoon, Colin Marks and Michael Gillis.
Help and Shelter and Every Child Guyana yesterday officially launched the Pickney Project – a programme specially implemented “to improve the lives of children experiencing violence and abuse by promoting the safety and protection of children“
This initiative, which is being funded by Every Child Guyana, was officially launched at the Pattensen Community Centre in Sophia. The programme focuses on communities and aims to involve as many members of the community as possible.
Sophia has been identified as the pilot community for the three-year project, which is expected to run until March 2011. And apart from Sophia, similar initiatives will be carried out in Good Hope and in different parts of Region 9.
Project Co-ordinator Michael Gillis identified the aims of the project as being five-fold. According to him, the main aim is to raise awareness with parents and other caregivers about child protection. He identified the secondary objectives as being to provide counselling and other psychosocial support to children, to collaborate with the Guyana Police Force to ensure an effective response to every report of child abuse, to work with teachers and health care providers on child protection mechanisms and also to develop a coalition of faith- based organisations, community groups and interested individuals who will network and share resources to promote child protection in the communities.
According to Project Officer Vidyaratha Kissoon, who is attached to Help and Shelter, Sophia was chosen because members of the community indicated an interest in having such a programme in the area. He said that results from a survey conducted also revealed that there was a high rate of abuse in that community. Kissoon stated that the programme is aiming to meet the needs of the children in the community and this includes bringing counselling closer to them. He also mentioned that the organisers of the project will be accountable to the community and to the general public and promised that there will be open forums where the successes and failures will be discussed.
Omattie Seaforth, the Country Director for Every Child Guyana, said that the success of the programme will be evaluated after one year. She explained that whatever the administrators of the project learn from working in Sophia will be used as the project is taken into other areas in Guyana. She said that it was important that members of the community got involved, since it took the proverbial village to raise a child. Seaforth also said that yesterday’s launch was held to coincide with the beginning of Child Protection Week under the theme “Every Citizen, A Child Protector”
Also speaking at yesterday’s launching was Colin Marks who is the Community Liaison Officer.
He said that a survey done in the community between March and April of this year revealed that there was widespread abuse of various forms present in the community. These included sexual, physical, verbal and emotional forms of abuse. He effectively used William Wallace’s poem “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” in his encouragement to parents to stop hitting their children. Marks urged the parents “to start rocking the cradle again and stop knocking it”.
The organisers expressed the hope that after this initiative comes to a conclusion after three years, that other entities will come on board and engage in similar activities.
What has to be done is to lobby Jagdeo to sign the bill proctecting children passed by parliament sometime ago ……”the” child predators can then be arrested and put before the courts and monitored by police thereafter……good luck with this one.
Like we have to pass laws to tell parents to take responsibiltiy for their children:::Like we have to pass laws for the dumbest things adults do..Like smoking in a car with kids.Like smoking in an elevator.Like letting your child ride a bike without helmet.Like letting your child use a cell phone during classes.Like beating up on your neighbor when they complain that your child did something wrong.If parents refused to take responsibility for their own action then nothing will work.Last but not least::When your child go missing do we have to pass laws for parents to report it to police?
This is a great initiative. I hope it succeeds.
While the efforts of the Pickney Project is to educate parents about the different forms of abuse I didn’t read anything about the elimination of physical abuse as being part of the mandate. Guyana is well known for corporal punishment which has proven numerous times to be futile in pointing a child in the right direction, both in school and at home. Frustrated parents take it out on their kids in the form of physical abuse. Working towards eliminating this will be another positive step.
not only guyana in this regard, but most of the carribean as well my friend even in nth.america this practice has been with us since the days of slavery, we as a people must come to realise that its not a good thing to physically abuse our children when they do wrong. nevertheless i applaud this initiative and hope it succeeds and given the supports it needs by private and govt entities.
First of all I commend the initiators of this program. Such program needs to be spread across all regions. My heart breaks when I hear of the immense sexual abuse done to little children in some of the regions. What is more disheartened is the fact that most of the abuse is done by a relative. Moreover the child and the abuser continue to live in the same home. There are cases where the mum is a willing participant in allowing this abuse to go on. I am aware of this because of firsthand knowledge. In cases like this, these children need to be placed away from the abuser or the abuser needs to be removed from the home to stop the recurrences. These children are at risk, therefore we need more foster care programs where these children can be placed away from the abusers. There are too many sexual abuse cases and nothing is being done about it.
We need to set up a system where social workers will visit the homes to confirm such findings and write reports on such findings. Secondly, the worker should keep a log on all such cases and report back to whomever is in charge. Home visits should continue until the worker is sure that the child is safe and a record should be kept on all reports.
Child abusive is a senseless, destructive and degrading crime. It’s a vicious crime perpetrated on innocent victims, their extended families and the entire community.
I commend all those who will give their best efforts to eradicate this disease from children’s lives.
Special thanks to the people involved in this project. I wish this project bring forth much positive results for the dear children of Guyana . I hope that guyanese at home and abroad will support this venture in every way shape and form possible.
Let’s protect and cherish the future of Guyana ,the children. God bless.
evileyes,2 thumbs up.some people blame the gov for everything