HEAD of Delegation of the EU to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and the Dutch OCTs, Ambassador Jernej Videtic; and Managing Director of ChildLink, Omattie Madray, have signed a grant contract to implement the project, titled “Child Rights Alliance”. 

The grant involves support to a maximum of $75.7 million, and will be funded from the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) 2014-2015 country allocation for Guyana.

“Human rights are one of the core values of the European Union and its member states. The European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights also provides the possibility to support civil society projects in this area in Guyana. The rights of vulnerable groups, especially children, are particularly important in this regard, and the ChildLinK proposal convinced us. We look forward to a successful implementation,” Ambassador Videtic has said.

Madray explained that ChildLinK’s vision for Guyana is a society in which children are growing up in safe families and communities.

“This new initiative, the Child Rights Alliance (CRA), builds on our previous and current work; more specifically, on the work of the Child Advocacy Centres which were all funded by the European Union. Whilst the centres will continue to provide services to abused children, greater emphasis must be placed on prevention of abuse of children, to give more children a better chance to grow up without the trauma of abuse. The CRA will therefore build a national coalition, led by the Rights of the Child Commission, to work strategically with stakeholders across all regions, creating higher levels of awareness of child abuse to safeguard children from all forms of abuse.

“ChildLinK”, she said, “is very pleased that the European Union has a long-term commitment to creating safe families and communities for Guyanese children.”

VIOLENCE PREVENTION
The overall objective of the fresh project is, through improved networking, to strengthen national collaboration to prevent violence and abuse against 6,000 children; to influence policies and practices; and, by June 2018, to engage in advocacy in Regions 3, 4 and 5.

Further, the activities foresaw, under the grant supplement, work done already by ChildLinK under three previous grants totalling over $86 million, which were funded from previous EIDHR Calls for Proposal put out by the Delegation.

ChildLinK Inc, a local non-governmental organisation, was established in 2009, and its mandate is to work with its partners towards crafting a Guyanese society in which every child has the right to grow up in a safe and secure family and community.

EIDHR is a self-standing financing instrument that provides assistance for the promotion of democracy and human rights worldwide, and specifically aims at assisting civil society to become an effective force for political reform and defence of human rights. The European Union launches regular calls for proposals.

PREVIOUS GRANTS

ChildLinK Inc has previously received three grants, totalling over $86 million, all funded from the aforementioned EIDHR initiative; and had, in 2013, completed activities under one of them — the HUG project which was implemented over 30 months.

The HUG initiative was envisioned with the principal objective of improving the lives of Guyanese children experiencing violence and domestic abuse. The project exceeded its stated objectives in sensitising almost 2,000 children from the Agricola and Ruimveldt communities who, under the activities conducted, were able to access services and information to enable them to realise their rights to protection from abuse.

Two ongoing actions, also funded by the European Commission, are aimed to provide children an opportunity to grow up in environments that are safe, secure, and conducive to their all-round development.

Their collective focus is to ensure that children receive direct psychosocial support in the form of counselling, and family support to help them develop resilience in their various
roles and situations; and, where possible, to accommodate changes.

These interventions will contribute to ChildLinK working directly with 500 children; 300 in alternative family-based care comprising foster care and kinship care, and 200 children who are at risk of losing parental care.

It is envisaged that the fresh grant will complement the work already undertaken, and over the next 30 months, the beneficiary will be working along with its partners, who include the relevant Government agencies, such as the Childcare and Protection Agency, towards the effective roll-out of the activities foreseen under the intervention.