Approaches to safer neighbourhoods (Part II)
THE CONCEPT of a safe neighbourhood is one whereby mechanisms are developed that lead to citizens feeling safe in their homes and walking the streets in their community. It also extends to people outside of the community having the same feeling and perception. The question that would be asked – feel safe from   whom and what? It is against violence and antisocial behaviour perpetrated by persons who are led to believe, influenced and exposed to these types of behaviour.
Most societies are bedevilled with these elements,  and tackling them requires careful analyses of the circumstances and the design of programmes if not to eliminate, to minimise the occurrences and impacts.
The Government of Guyana in recognition of the need to address this issue, some two years ago  intervened with its Citizen Security Programme.  This programme which is heavily supported by the Inter American Development Bank, and executed by the Ministry of Home Affairs, targets 10 communities in Regions 4 and 6.
These are communities in which young people, those who are mainly school dropouts,  and were considered vulnerable and are at risk of gravitating toward criminal activities have become the subject of focus.
An important component of the programme is violence prevention, and it is shaped from the empirically based conviction that violence is not inevitable. The peculiarities and contextual factors  in Guyana’s case have lead to the implementation of a series of violence-prevention programmes, whereby factors influencing violence that are amenable to change are targeted.
They are premised on the etiology of youth violence from developmental and sociological perspectives. These include the influence of societal factors such as media, guns, drugs and gangs. In each community, four violence prevention programmes are in progress to address specific issues. They include youth, domestic/intimate partner and personal development.
In the previous column, we examined prevalence of youth violence, the causes and some practical ways  to prevent instances of violence.
This week, we look briefly at Personal Development involving mainly those youths who would have completed training in the CSP’s Youth Life Skills and Vocational Training, and are ready to launch into the world of work.
The experience has been that many of our young people are unprepared for work, and these include those coming out of university.
The CSP Consultant for Personal Development in Region 4, Indira Anandjit,  pointed out that a key  objective of this aspect is to develop a rounded personality of these youngsters to enable them to overcome these challenges. We caught up with her at one of the sessions in Sophia. They are taught to focus on positive things, literacy and numeracy, workplace ethics, and are exposed to health issues and drug awareness.
Sessions like these, she pointed out, are important for the young people to become assertive and confident. It addresses anger management, whereby they not only share experiences, they learn from others how they would have dealt with theirs. The hope is that they would become better- serving  members of the community, better citizens who would contribute to the overall development of not only themselves, but the country.
These Violence-Prevention programmes draw from the predictors of youth violence where it has been determined that most aggressive  teenagers do not limit their antisocial behaviour to aggression, but rather display a broad repertoire of antisocial behaviours, and this must be addressed.
In Guyana’s case, the intervention is driven by contextual, individual and situational factors.