The early Friday morning fire in Linden that destroyed several buildings in the old Guymine compound dealt a huge blow to the work being done among the HIV community in Region 10 and over 300 hundred children will now be worse off because the haven they have had for the last eight years was razed.
That haven was the buildings occupied by the Linden Care Foundation, which not only provided meals and other assistance to children but it was also used as a meeting spot for the most vulnerable populations, such as sex workers and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.
“It is a huge blow and a very tragic situation,” Director of the Linden Care Foundation Hazel Maxwell-Benn told Stabroek News yesterday. “It is a huge setback as we cannot execute the project and there are persons out there who are part of the Care’s core client group that are depending on us.”
She along with others were on their way to Georgetown on Friday morning to work on a proposal for funding since their current funding comes to an end next month when they received the tragic news.
The director told this newspaper that the building occupied by the foundation was not only an office and meeting place for the vulnerable groups but they also operated a soup kitchen, a canteen and a pharmacy, with the latter two being used to keep the foundation afloat financially.
She described it as a space for execution of care, support and treatment for the HIV population in Region 10, which also translated into mentoring of the over three hundred children that are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Maxwell-Benn said that there are some 100 infected persons accessing their services and out of that number, there are 15 children. “The support group for people living with HIV was also held at the Foundation and voluntary counseling and testing was also facilitated at the building,” she explained.
Speaking about the soup kitchen, she said that it provided snacks for the children on the three days a week they visit the foundation. An “economic strengthening programme” was also done with adolescents in the kitchen. And while they have been able to save some items, many of what they own, including computers and files, went up in flames.
They saved some items but she said there was some amount of looting and the things had to be stored at the old hospital and an assessment of what is lost has not been done.
“It is a huge loss, as it is right now we are kind of handicapped.
We have been offered a temporary space in the old Linden Hospital complex but there is a huge clean up to do because it has been empty for a while,” Maxwell-Benn said.
The Foundation had been at the location for the past eight years even though it has been around since 2001. It is not clear what its next move would be but Maxwell-Benn said they would set up a temporary post at the old hospital complex and they are also looking for a private location where persons can access counselling. “This is very devastating to the families and children. It was a haven for them and it was a haven for many other people who visited whenever they had a problem,” she said.
