THE Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA) believes that many people are “work-shopped out” and hence has been focusing on developing more concrete, “creative” means of getting things done. 

“We have been working on new initiatives; some quite creative things because we have realised that people are all work-shopped out. You go to a workshop and eat lots of pastries and that’s about it. And you go to some and see the same people all the time. So it’s like their career. We have to measure the impact the workshops are having on the communities,” GRPA’s Executive Director Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth said recently.
She told the Chronicle at her Quamina Street, Georgetown office that GRPA will be expanding its services and its amount of working hours. “We have to think about late afternoons and sometimes even Saturdays, half day.”
Meanwhile, Programme’s Director Renuka Anandjit spoke a bit about GRPA’s ‘Choices Project’ which focuses on youths, although it caters for parents and adults too. “To really serve the youth population, you need to target everybody because it’s everybody’s concerns; it impacts everybody,” she said.
The project focuses on promoting access to services, promoting access to comprehensive sexuality education and promoting the Caribbean framework to reduce teenage pregnancy.
It will be implemented in four regions across Guyana, namely Regions One to Four (Barima/Waini, Pomeroon/Supenaam, Essequibo Islands/West Demerara, and Demerara/Mahaica).
Endorsing Sheerattan’s remarks that they are trying to stay away from the typical workshop scenario, Anandjit said: “We are trying to move away from training oriented initiatives. We are doing a lot of information sessions but we are doing it in a creative way.
“We are trying to push edu-tainment (Education and Entertainment). It makes an impact. We will incorporate a lot of drama into our deliveries and train a core group of volunteers and persons associated with the organisation to really branch out into the communities to deliver this information.”
Furthermore, she said GRPA will be targeting in and out of school groups from selected schools in the four regions. GRPA also plans to work with the New Opportunity Corps. “We are going to have health promoters on the ground, so each region will have one or two health promoters who are going to be doing these sessions and working closely with established health centers.
“We have a set relationship with health care providers and they will do referral services. It creates a safer bond when you have a go-to person as opposed to just going in there. That referral service works very well,” Anandjit related.
The teams will be operating out of GRPA but will also be on the ground providing mobile services.

You go to a workshop and eat lots of pastries and that’s about it. And you go to some and see the same people all the time. So it’s like their career.

By Telesha Ramnarine