Help & Shelter continues to be low on funds to continue its public education programmes and meet its administrative costs.
For more than a decade and a half the organisation has been providing critical services to victims of domestic violence, but Administrator Margaret Kertzious said that during the last three years it has not been able to conduct its education programme regionally due to the lack of funding.
While its shelter for victims of domestic violence is fully funded by an annual $10M grant from the government, Kertzious told Stabroek News that it continues to beg for funding to help run its Homestretch Avenue office and to go into various regions to conduct public awareness programmes.
The European Union has continuously provided funding for the counselling service provided at the organisation’s crisis centre, including the wages of counsellors. However, the payment of the administrative staff depends on the kindness of corporate entities, which from time-to-time would be approached for support.
According to Kertzious, the organisation would receive funding from donor agencies from time to time but these are limited to specific programmes, while it has continuous programmes that are always in need of funding. “All the time we have to keep begging to ensure that our administrative cost is covered,” she lamented.
Kertzious revealed that the organisation is set to receive some funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under its Gender-Based Violence Fund. The funding will be provided for a project, which will run for ten and a half months in two communities in Region Three. The project is titled ‘Enhancing the Awareness of Gender Based Violence and its Effects through Community Awareness work’ and will be conducted in the Stewartville and Uitvlugt communities. It will see focus being placed in schools and support organisations in the communities, such as Parent-Teacher Associations and religious groups, would also be targeted by the project for sensitisation.
“But this is not our general public education outreach programme. We still need more funding to do this work and this is not a long term project,” Kertzious explained.
She said Help & Shelter has also received some funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to conduct work place intervention programmes in private sector communities on domestic violence and family planning. “But we need to have money coming in to do our public education programme,” Kertzious emphasised. She pointed out that in the past, the organisation would conduct three day workshop programmes on domestic violence and other topical issues, but for the past three years this has not been done and there has been limited public education programme in close environs.
She pointed out that there is continuous need for public education on domestic violence especially in far flung areas to stem the rising incidents of domestic violence.
