Dozens of children turned up on Saturday at the Kitty Seawall to be part of a mural painting exercise to observe Universal Children’s Day which was celebrated on Wednesday.
The activity was held at the Kitty Seawall between Vlissengen Road and Pere Street and was organised by the Guyana Equality Forum in collaboration with the interim Guyana National Youth Council, Youth Challenge Guyana, Youths for Guyana and the Guyana Girls Guide Association.
Speaking about the activity, Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) Communication Officer Schemel Patrick said, “The mural was painted earlier this year so we are just trying to restore it and add a few other things.”
She mentioned that the theme dealt with speaking out against abuse and discrimination of children. She noted that SASOD was a big part of the activity as a human rights’ organisation of which children happened to be one of the main focus.
Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency Ann Greene lauded the activity. “I would love more activities with children expressing themselves. We are encouraging more civil society groups to have activities like this. This is a good activity. We are looking to establish more of these partnerships and collaborations…,” she said.
Greene stated that children’s day is a day to celebrate and to look and see where we are with child rights. There are still some challenges with child abuse. She added, “We want to prevent children from harm, abuse and exploitation but to do it calls for collaboration. It is an enemy that we are fighting here, child abuse.”
Green said that she is concerned because, “if the tide keeps flowing how it is flowing, children will be an endangered species. We try to use every forum to send a message so that we can stop the abuse of children.”
