The International Office for Migration (IOM), currently in discussions with the Guyana government and other non-governmental organizations, will be setting up an office for the implementation of an initial one-year resettlement project for Guyanese deported from the USA.
The IOM Regional Representative for North America and the Caribbean, Richard Scott is currently in the country with another IOM representative. They met yesterday with Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security Trevor Thomas to continue discussions on the areas of intervention for the resettlement of Guyanese deported from the USA and information sharing on the deportees.
The IOM’s involvement in the programme is part of a wider one-year US$2.8 million pilot that is being funded by the US government through the State Department to the tune of US$2.8 million, covering Guyana, Haiti and The Bahamas.
The team will also be meeting with local service providers – non-governmental organizations – who would play a critical role in the reintegration process of the deportees. It is expected that the IOM and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would work with the government and other local partners in the execution of the resettlement programmes.
As part of the implementation of the project, the IOM would be setting up an office in Guyana which would be headed by a non-Guyanese.
The current visit is a follow-up to two others held in March and later in April. According to US Embassy spokesman, Rolf Olson they are in the process of putting together the various ideas and proposals.
In an earlier interview Scott had told Stabroek News that the areas of intervention would include the reception of deportees back into the originating country, assistance in the reintegration process, including finding employment, training which would lead to employment, and funding of micro-enterprises.
At present, the IOM is completing an initial phase of the pilot project in Haiti under separate funding by the US government. The project in Haiti would be continued under the current one along with Guyana and The Bahamas.
In June 2007 Caricom Heads of Government raised the issue of deportees at the US-government-sponsored Conference of the Caribbean held in Washington DC.
Following the conference a Caricom expert testified before the Sub-Committee on the Western Hemisphere in the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
At the hearing of the issue before the Sub-Committee on the Western Hemisphere in July, Chairman of the Sub-Committee Eliot Engel had said he expects that the deportee reintegration programme would be an extension of the Haiti project which the US government hoped to set up “as a model to other Caricom nations.”
