Further funding for thousands of women benefiting from gender-focused programmes

Thousands of women are benefitting from programmes and policies implemented by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security and subject Minister Dr. Vindhya Persaud said the government will continue to fund such programmes.

Dr. Persaud’s presentation on Guyana’s national sustainable model for gender equality was part of a three-day ministerial forum on empowerment and gender equality that got underway on Wednesday at the Marriott Hotel in Kingston, Georgetown.

Through her presentation, she delved into some of the initiatives her ministry has been working on with support from the wider government.

For example, she said the Women Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN) initiative has trained over 12,000 women so far. After those women are trained, they are able to access much-needed business support and even cash grants so that they can start ventures of their own.

Other programmes include those that provide legal support and referral services, and other forms of assistance to women in need. There is also training for Police Officers through the COPSQUAD initiative so that they can better support women affected by violence.

And importantly, Dr. Persaud noted that even after external funding for these programmes stops, the government will still fund the programmes.

“Guyana will be able to integrate all of the programmes that have been started under the Spotlight Initiative, under the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security.

“That simply means that there will be budgetary allotments to everything that was started under Spotlight and I think that is significant because it means we have continuity for everything started under this programme,” Dr. Persaud highlighted.

She added that this is part of the government’s efforts to take “national ownership” of the goal of guaranteeing gender empowerment and equality.

For context, the United Nations and the European Union have collaborated on the Spotlight Initiative which focuses on addressing all forms of family violence, which covers physical, social, sexual, economic and emotional abuse and acts of aggression within relationships that are considered as family connections or akin to family connections.