Former president of the Board of Directors of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood As-sociation (GRPA) Beverly Braithwaite-Chan is its new Executive Director and she yesterday announced plans to revamp its organisational structure and tackle the funding challenge.

At a press conference in the Executive Director’s office yesterday, Board President Pamela Nauth said Braithwaite-Chan was the most suitable of the applicants, adding that she came with “a wealth of knowledge” that would be able to “take this organisation places”. She replaces former executive director Frederick Cox who died last year.

Braithwaite-Chan said her new post was an “extraordinary opportunity” and she was “fully conscious” of the gaps and resources of the organisation.

Some of the issues to be addressed during Braithwaite-Chan’s tenure include repositioning the organisational structures, sustaining and developing partnerships and the reaccreditation of the GRPA by its parent body.

Part of the repositioning of the organisation includes focusing on parents since according to Braithwaite-Chan, the name of the organisation speaks to what it should be doing. And while she noted that there is general awareness of the organisation’s services, Braithwaite-Chan pointed out that there is always room for improvement.

Last year, the GRPA offered services such as pap smears to over 450 persons, did approximately 28,000 tests for HIV and counselling both for the test and others, Programmes Director Sheila Yaw-Fraser said.

Yaw-Fraser said that as part of the counselling, some 61,700 male condoms and approximately 1,000 female condoms were distributed both as contraception and HIV prevention. And while she could not say if this has led to a reduction in unplanned pregnancies or abortions, Nauth, who is on the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Advisory Board, said statistics suggest that there has been a reduction of abortions countrywide in the 15 to 25-year age group. She was unable to give a percentage.

Meanwhile, addressing the organisation’s funding, Braithwaite-Chan said that core funding came from the organisation’s parent body, the International Planned Parenthood Federation along with a subvention from the Ministry of Education. Other forms of gaining finance are fundraisers, applying to donor agencies and the organisation’s clinic, which was the major source of income for the organisation.

Nauth said funding is still a challenge for the organisation which has a large staff. Limited funding is why the organisation has not been able to expand its services outside Georgetown, she said.

Also present at the press conference were GRPA’s Medical Director Dr Kampta Prashad; Corporate Services Director, Simon Pollard and the Executive Director’s Assistant Deborrah Thomas. The conference was chaired by the organisation’s Public Relations Officer Orin Major.