Latest update November 8th, 2024 1:00 AM
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USAID awards grants for domestic violence issues
After receiving their Grant Award Certificates, representatives of Red Thread, Help and Shelter and Roadside Baptist Training Centre pose for a photograph with USAID Mission Director Carol Horning (L) and Dickson Bailey (R) Chief-of-Party, USAID/Governance Enhancement Project.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID/Guyana) through its Governance Enhancement Project (GEP) yesterday awarded grants in the amount of US$58,600 to three Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
The grants would help implement domestic violence issue-based activities in Regions four, six and eight.
The grants were awarded to the Red Thread, Help and Shelter and the Roadside Baptist Skills Training Center, which are all Non Governmental Organizations.
In addressing the grantees, at the award signing ceremony which was held at the Georgetown Club, Ms Carol Horning, Mission Director for USAID/Guyana, affirmed the commitment of USAID to work with the Government of Guyana and civil society to address domestic violence through programs focusing on the reduction of domestic violence incidents.
“Domestic violence,” Ms Horning said, “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.”
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 programs assist social workers, local leaders and court personnel to learn how 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 grant to Red Thread will fund a program of empowerment in Region 8 for victims of domestic violence and enable them to advocate for change at the community level.
The grant to 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 4.
The grant received by Roadside Baptist Skills Training Center will help train local counselors, undertake a community awareness campaign and establish a men’s empowerment program.
The program is expected to assist them to deal with stress, anger and other contributors to domestic violence caused by men.
The expectation is that the men participating in this program will be advocates for change in their community over the long term. This project will be undertaken in Region 6.
Funding announced yesterday is the first phase of the GEP small grants program. Additional grants will be made available to Guyanese Civil Society Organizations at a later date.
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