Residents of the Essequibo Coast will now have the benefit of a Child Advocacy Centre—the first of its kind in the region—which is designed to house all the agencies involved in advocacy and protection of children under one roof.
The centre, located at Land of Plenty, was commissioned yesterday and will see investigators, counsellors and prosecutors installed to ensure that children who would have been subjected to abuse do not have to relate their experiences over and over.
The Shaffeek Khan Outreach Centre also houses Rafieya’s International Vision and Hope (RIVAH), which seeks to raise awareness about domestic violence. It was launched a year ago by Miss Guyana World and Miss World Caribbean Rafieya Husain.
The Child Advocacy Centre will be run by the NGO Blossom Inc, which has as its goals: delivering programmes to children and families affected by trauma due to sexual abuse and building and strengthening relationships bet-ween children and their families to safeguard the physical and mental well-being of all children.
The centre will provide services such as forensic interviews, crisis intervention, counseling, trauma focused therapy, parenting sessions, child and family advocacy and education and prevention activities.
Dr Andrea Lambert, of Blossom Inc, was not present at the event but sent her speech, which was read by Shaundell Shipley, who noted the importance of the centre.
“… The region has not had a specialised service working with children who have been sexually abused or suffer severe physical abuse,” she read.
“For the first half of the year from January to June, the Child Care and Protection Agency [CC&PA] has received 334 cases of child sexual abuse.
This is approximately two cases per day.
This is why collaboration is important while working in child protection and we commend our partners the CC&PA, Guyana Police Force, Director of Public Prosecution, medical facilities, ChildLink and For-ward Guyana for embracing this new way of working to protect our children in a holistic fashion,” the statement also said.
Regional Chairman Davanand Ramdatt, in his remarks, said he realises that all NGOs have collaborated with the CC&PA to make a dedicated approach to address the issue of child sexual abuse.
“Children are being affected increasingly by [the suicides of] family members and people who are familiar with them. People need to become conscious, especially in human development of society.
We need to stop seeing young people as a problem to solve.
Young people are assets to develop and not problems to solve,” he said, while calling on trained professional to intervene in schools.
He also called for an end to children being charged with wandering, while stating that the police should instead be investigating why they left home.
Also in attendance at the commissioning were ‘E’ Division Commander Superintendent of Police Kevin Adonis, member of the board of directors of RIVAH Juliet Coonjah, Phillip Anthony of the CC&PA, Jacqueline James of Digicel Guyana and other representatives of Blossom Inc.
The launch of Region Two’s Children’s Advo-cacy Centre coincides with Child Protection Week, which began on September 20 and ends today.
