USAID, through its Governance Enhancement Project (GEP) this week awarded grants valued US$58,600 to three civil society organisations to implement activities aimed at decreasing the incidence of domestic violence in regions four, six and eight.
According to a press release the grants were awarded to Red Thread, Help and Shelter and the Roadside Baptist Skills Training Centre. In her address to the awardees at the signing ceremony, USAID/Guyana Mis-sion Director Carol Horning affirmed her agency’s commitment to working with the government and civil society to address domestic violence through programmes focusing on the reduction of such incidents.
“Domestic violence stretches…stretches beyond the victims and affected families and strategies to address these heinous acts should be focused on transforming those social norms and structures that are the root causes of domestic violence,” she said.
The grants complement existing GEP community-based and other activities to train local officials to deal with domestic violence and domestic violence court protocols. GEP training programmes equip social workers, local leaders and court personnel with the skills to address specific incidents of domestic violence more effectively and sensitively. “An important by-product of these grants will be a better awareness of how this issue affects the community at large, not just the individual victims and their families,” the release said.
The grant to Red Thread will fund an empowerment programme in Region Eight for victims of domestic violence that aims to help them to advocate for change at the community level.
The grant for Help and Shelter will advocate for improved counselling services for victims; strengthen community-based services and provide a broader understanding of the rights of victims of violence in Region Four.
In addition, the Roadside training centre in Region Six will train local counsellors, undertake a community awareness campaign and establish a men’s empowerment programme that will equip them to deal with stress, anger and other contributors to domestic violence. It is expected that the men will become change agents in their communities over the long term.
According to the release funding is the first phase of the GEP small grants programme. Additional grants will be made available to other civil society organisations at a later date.
