A group of women from Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara (ECD) is working to instil lifelong values in the younger generation while assisting the community’s women to live independent lives.
The group, the Mon Repos Women in Development Group, which is based at community centre ground at Mon Repos Pasture, and has been in existence some six years to date attracts a number of women from the area to participate in its year long list of activities, mainly skills training events, to equip the women of the community to be independent.
Coordinator and spokesperson of the group, Padmini Singh, during a recent interview with this newspaper said that the aim of the group is to expose women from the community, mainly those who may not have completed the varying levels of education, to earn an income. “The idea is to expose them to different areas so that they can be able to maintain themselves.”
The group came into existence a few months after the 2005 Great Flood, when Singh and seven other women from the community, “thought that we could form a group and do something for the women in the area”. She said they “see the need to empower our women from the community to make them better people.”
The group at the moment attracts a membership of some 25 women between the ages of 14 to 58. However, whenever the group undertakes various projects, such as workshops, as many as 75 women from the area and nearby communities would participate.
She said the group attracts the women from the area by carrying out activities which will “benefit them” and “we invite the women to let them see ways in which they can learn a skill and could even pass it on to their children”.
A major bugbear which would at times haunt the group was the availability of resources. Singh said, “we don’t really make finance our problem because most of the women would bring out their own materials whenever we have projects and we make adequate use of whatever they bring.” But there are some materials which at times are difficult to source.
The group had approached several organisations, such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for assistance but Singh said that because the group was not “equipped to create a project proposal; because we do not have the people with such qualifications”; it was unable to access assistance from those organisations.
However, last year, the group received much needed assistance from the Youth Service Unit of the Culture Ministry in the form of a six-weeks Community Develop-ment Skills Training Pro-gramme which began in November and ended two weeks ago. The scope of the project was mainly the undertaking of a craft and sewing programme in which the women were taught various skills in the art of craft making and decoration.
The programme was coordinated by Doreen Scipio of the Culture Ministry.
The programme was successfully completed by more than 2 dozen women from the ages of 12 to 58, who were anxious to receive the much needed training. Group member Ramdhai Persaud, 58, told Stabroek News that she was grateful to have been involved in the project and the group’s calendar of activities. Persaud said she is now able to learn and practice skills which she never received in the earlier years of her life. Persaud is one of few members of the group who would assist in the undertaking of group projects.
Another group member Reshma Alli, of the younger generation, said she too was grateful for the recent training provided and plans to continue to be involved in the activities undertaken by the group.
The women meet once a month at the community centre where they discuss plans for each month, a task which Singh said is usually “fruitful” since the women are always eager to “get involved in something new and beneficial to them”.
They also meet monthly to undertake aspects of the group’s sewing programme.
The group’s calendar of events includes a Valentine’s Day fete for its members and persons from the community, lunch for the widows of the area on Mother’s Day, a summer programme for the community’s children and a similar event at Christmas time where the focus is mainly aimed at the less fortunate.
Singh said the group would in future wish to have programmes such as literacy training and workshops on HIV/AIDS, parenting skills and drug and alcohol abuse.
Meanwhile, the group is at the moment in a transitioning process, not only by a recent name change to the Mon Repos Gender Development Group, but to have males from the community, mainly the youths, involved in similar programmes.
“It is our intention to go across the line and have the men involved because we believe something needs to be done to have our youths obtain a skill which would prepare them for the future,” Singh said.
