G+ board resigns, interim team takes over

– to start ‘from scratch’

The operations of the Guyanese Network of People Living with and affected by HIV (G+) have been handed over to a interim management team as the organisation can no longer source financing because of mismanagement.

According to a release from UNAIDS, the seven-member board of directors of G+ resigned at a special members’ meeting held at Hotel Tower last week Friday. The board handed over all responsibilities to a seven-member Interim Management Team put together by UNAIDS, the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB), the Guyana Red Cross Society and the Guyana Responsibility Parenthood Association (GRPA).

In addition, the GRPA has also offered to continue the services that G+ had been providing to its members and clients until a decision is made about the future of the organisation.
According to the release, the technical team has been given a period of three months to assess the need for a national network of people living with HIV in Guyana and what the value added, structure and governance of such a network would be.

The UNAIDS release said the former board members informed those at the meeting that the organisation has been forced to close its doors because funding to continue its operations had dried-up, and donors were unwilling to continue supporting G+ under the present management.

“This situation is not new and several previous attempts were made to revitalize the organisation,” the release said. However, with its unclear mandate, poor management and improper financial accountability, “closing down and starting from scratch” in the words of Dussiley Cannings, one of the founding members, when she handed over ‘her organisation’ to the interim team, “was the only option left.’

According to the release, the interim body is expected, through wide consultations with the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) and other key government, and non-government civil society organisations; including the faith leadership, the private sector and people living with the virus, to propose a “National Network of people living with HIV, that has capacity building and leadership support to existing people living with HIV, groups and organisations, at the centre of its mission.” It is hoped that such a network would seek to connect the family of government and civil society organisations that work with and for people living with HIV; to bring cohesion, coordination and alignment to the national efforts as guided by the national HIV strategy. “This network would need to have the trust, credibility and the capacity to fully participate as a key civil society partner within the National HIV Operational Plan,” the release said.

UNAIDS, which is the lead organisation in the bid to rebuild the network, said it expects the ‘starting from scratch’ will be a good one which contains the ‘DNA’ of the original dream of Cannings and the now deceased Andre Sobryan when they founded the network 12 years ago. That dream was for G+ to be a true national network of people living with and affected by the virus and all existing support groups and caregivers from the ten regions. The two had dreamt that the groups would not have competed but would have fought jointly for their rights and  agreed jointly on their responsibilities.