The Caribbean Vulnerable Com-munities Coalition (CVC) and the Centre for Integral Orien-tation and Investigation (COIN), yesterday announced the first round of CVC/COIN grants in Guyana, under the ‘Caribbean Vulnerabilised Groups Project’.
The recipient NGOs were Artistes in Direct Support, the Volunteer Youth Corps, Youth Challenge Guyana and the Society Against Sexual Orien-tation Discrimination (SASOD), each receiving US$20,000.
CVC has joined with COIN to implement the project as sub-recipients of a Pan- Caribbean Partnership against
HIV and AIDS (PANCAP)/Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Round 9 Grant.
“CVC/COIN has funded four initiatives in Guyana where each unique intervention seeks to strengthen … responses to HIV in populations most vulnerable,” said CVC/COIN Country Coordinator Zenita Nicholson yesterday at a press briefing.
Artistes in Direct Support’s project involves working with young men between the ages of 14-24 who are affected by HIV and providing them life skills for them to function in society. The NGO would be working with these young men in self-esteem, conflict and life skills workshops.
Coordinator of SASOD Joel Simpson said that NGOs project would tackle the stigma and discrimination attached to HIV in Guyana. “The biggest challenge that we face when it comes to HIV in Guyana is stigma and discrimination,” he said.
SASOD will use mass media to educate the public about the stigma through five film documentaries, which deal with issues like homophobia, double stigma, transphobia and discrimination in the field of employment, as well as its film SASOD at Ten.
The Volunteer Youth Corps will support 80 marginalised youths in Georgetown through the provision of HIV prevention education, income generation training and mentoring sessions. The HIV/AIDS education training would be implemented over a ten-day period while the Income Generation training would be implemented over a two-month period in areas such as cooking, dress making, computer, wood work, auto mechanic and hair and nail classes.
Youth Challenge Guyana’s CVC project would focus on empowering sex workers with knowledge on their human rights in order to protect themselves and also promoting education sessions for sex workers’ clients and the Guyanese society on the rights of sex workers and human rights laws.
The CVC is based in Jamaica and COIN in the Dominican Republic.
