When the Witness Project rolls out its posters in January next year, it will have the moral and physical support of US Ambassador to Guyana Brent Hardt, who has promised to roll up his sleeves and help get the posters up.
Margaret Clemons of the Witness project visited Guyana earlier this month and held a meeting with the local team, which includes the 15 children photographers tasked with supplying the photographs for the posters. Clemons was also successful in securing an audience with the US ambassador and staff, who were moved and excited by the work the children have completed so far and immediately pledged their support, she told Stabroek News in a subsequent interview.
During the one-day meeting Clemons held with the team at School of the Nations, the children expressed how much they were enjoying being part of what will soon be an international initiative to make a difference.
Some participants said the process has helped them to improve their communication skills and build their self esteem to take on the violent world and make an impactful change in the way people live.
One participant, Chantal Lewis, said the project also promotes unity and seeks to eliminate racism “so we can better our tomorrow for the future generation”. Noting that domestic violence is of major emphasis on the Witness Project’s agenda, she said she would eventually like to start a youth group with a focus on educating children exposed to domestic violence on how they can make a difference in their lives.
The Witness Project has already secured permission to place its impactful posters in prime spots in Georgetown. The Georgetown Seawall being one such spot.
Clemons and her team have done mock-ups which illustrate what the posters will look like when they are put up and these form part of a power-point presentation, which was shared with the children and the US embassy. As a result, Witness has secured yet another location for its posters – the upper windows of the embassy steeple. The National Library and the Stabroek Market square are some of the other places where the posters will be seen.
The Witness Project is an initiative of the Margaret Clemons Foundation, which seeks to draw attention to and spark conversations about the effects of adult human behaviour, particularly gender based and child directed violence on society’s most vulnerable and impressionable witnesses, our children.
It is also part of the global photography project by the French artist JR called Inside Out and the New York-based technology, entertainment and design (TED) Prize. As a result, video footage of the project, some of which would have been documented earlier this month, is to be included in a documentary film that will reach an international audience.
The 15 children who are involved in the project were selected by the Ministry of Human Services, Help and Shelter and Varqa Foundation, which is the School of the Nations after-school literacy programme for the children from Tiger Bay. Minister of Human Services Priya Manickchand, head of Varqa Foundation Brian O’Toole, Margaret Kertizous of Help and Shelter and others are also lending support to the project.
