The pilot phase of the Guyana Foundation’s counselling and training centre was completed last week, the Guyana Founda-tion stated in a press release.
According to the release, the announcement about the Sunrise Centre was made last week at the Westin Hotel, Grand Cayman, during a presentation by the Foundation’s Founder, Supriya Singh-Bodden and its Managing Director, Anthony Autar.
According to Singh-Bodden, the Sunrise Centre is part of the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to provide urgently-needed training, counselling and support services to individuals and families across Guyana.
Autar explained, the release stated, that during the pilot phase, the following services and programmes were offered free of charge to Essequibo Coast residents: six days of professional counselling and mental health support services; holistic wellness activities such as yoga; and skills training courses in the areas of fabric design, electrical installation, catering and floral arrangement.
He added that as part of the Foundation’s monitoring and evaluation programme, the mental well-being of all participants of the skills-training courses were assessed twice using a scale developed by a university in the United Kingdom. He stated that improvement in mental well-being was recorded in over 85% of the participants who were assessed.
According to the release, upon the completion of the presentation, there was a fashion display by models of a line of clothing created from fabric produced by the Centre’s fabric design class.
Singh-Bodden said that a fashion house in the Cayman Islands has placed an order for all the fabric designed by the Centre’s students, creating gainful employment for these individuals.
The Guyana Foundation will now set up a small fabric printing workshop at its premises to assist the fabric designers to get started until they can go out on their own, the release said.
According to the release, the Centre will be officially opened soon and new courses will begin in November.
The Sunrise Centre is part of the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to provide training, counselling and support services to individuals and families across Guyana.
Singh-Bodden made an appeal for more organizations, and individuals both in and out of Guyana to come on board to assist with this aspect of the Foundation’s work.
She stated that “in order for Guyana to build a healthy investment climate the wellness of its people is absolutely the most important priority. We cannot be registering and reporting deaths by suicide in our newspapers then telling the world we are open for business. We need to fix this problem and give it the priority it deserves.”
