CONTINUING her awareness outreach, Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr. Vindhya Persaud, on Saturday, held an engagement with residents of Wales in the Essequibo-Islands, West Demerara region, where she advocated for the safety of children.
Minister Persaud told parents that each child is shaped by their experiences, pointing out that not all children live in the same house, have the same families or attend the same schools, a fact that we must all be cognisant of.
Pleading for parents to be better for their children, Dr. Persaud told the parents present that they have felt the effect parenting (whether good or bad) has had on them, and they can choose to follow that pattern, or do better.
According to Minister Persaud, her Ministry has started parenting programmes that are geared at improving parenting styles.
“Look, nobody is perfect, and sometimes parenting can go wrong. Sometimes your temper can get the better of you, and you do the wrong things. This is to help parents. This is also to help children at the end of the day, so that their parents could do better by them,” the minister said.
Similar to other engagements last week, the minister highlighted other programmes ongoing at her ministry, including the 914 hotline, the Women’s Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN), and the iMatter App.
She spoke on the viral “COPSQUAD” training started in 2021 for ranks of the Guyana Police Force. They are educated on the Child Protection Act, trained on the previous Domestic Violence Act of 1996 and are currently being trained on the Family Violence Act of 2024.
“So police training has to be continuous, and one of the new things you will see is me handing over to the Minister of Home Affairs the training that we want, so that it can be put into the police academy, so that the recruits can be trained, and they have what you call continuing education all the way through,” the minister announced.
Additionally, she mentioned that there are various shelters/ homes for children, child focus counselling for children and a number of other targeted initiatives. No agency, she affirmed, does this alone.
Underscoring the old saying, “it takes a village to raise a child”, Minister Persaud said everyone has to be responsible.
She confirmed that through the Ministry of Education, each school has a guidance and welfare counsellor, and several teachers have passed through social work training.
The Human Services Ministry, along with the Ministry of Education, will be working together to help these persons in areas they need training.
Importantly, the minister also stated that the ministry, in recent years, started a support and field network with approximately 40 religious organisations. Representatives of these organisations have been trained and informed on conflict resolution, gender-based violence, and child protection.
This was done with the aim of them returning to their churches, masjids, and mandirs to train persons there, and so religious leaders are aware of these issues.
“I fully know that the religious network is a very big one and has a lot of influence on people and in communities. So, we are continuing to work with them,” the minister said, adding that the network is still there, and the ministry will continue to train and work with them.
Dr. Persaud highlighted that child abuse is a crime and is a reportable offence. She noted that while religious leaders can intervene and provide counselling, it does not remove the responsibility to report that offence.
Engaging the community in meaningful dialogue to discuss this growing issue, the Minister stated that as people, we have to learn to develop a sense of maturity, and learn to look out for each other, and watch each other’s back, especially in cases related to children.
