Youth organisation seeks to ‘Inspire Change’ for young women, girls

Professional Youth Alliance Guyana (PYAGuy) on Tuesday launched its “Inspire Change for young women and girls” gender-based violence (GBV) project.

A release from the organisation said that it launched the GBV project “because of the prevalence of the unfair treatment of girls and young girls and young women in our community.”

It said that the project, called ‘Inspire Change’ for short, is a community-based multicultural programme designed to empower young women and girls.
The launch took place at the group’s Barr Street, Kitty office. It said that the project will focus on four main areas: personal development, leadership, life skills and employment. It is aimed at inspiring, encouraging, enhancing and developing young women and girls through creative training and practical sessions. It said that the goals are to promote positive messages to young people, build and strengthen women’s and girls’ support groups and to build communities through training.

The project targets girls and young women between the ages of 13 to 26 years.
The group will hold monthly training workshops in which participants will be assigned to dynamic learning groups, each facilitated by a mentor/counsellor who will encourage team building among participants while giving them the opportunity to gain skills, uncover their leadership abilities and promote change. There will also be group counselling sessions.

The organisation expressed the hope that at the end of the project, the selected girls and young women will become empowered; understand issues affecting them, family and community; understand GBV and methods of prevention; and have the skills to develop positive relationships with peers and partners.

The release said that PYAGuy is an organisation for young people run by young people, which was created to facilitate professional development training, consultations, community outreach activities, service to young professionals and youth organisations, and networking between youth leaders and organisations.  It said that the group has so far worked with youth in regions 2, 3 and 4.