…counselling services could close due to lack of funds

Help and Shelter has revealed that it is in critical need of funds to sustain the coordination and operation of its essential counselling services (hotline, face-to-face and court support) provided by its Crisis Service Centre.

A statement from the organization noted that the precarious financial situation resulted from the reduced availability of project funding to Guyana due to its re-classification as a middle income country.

“Hence Help and Shelter has barely managed to keep its counselling activities alive,” the statement noted.

It was further revealed that when the organisations’ three year EU-funded human rights project came to an end in June 2014, they were able to persuade UN Women to cover the costs of its counselling services for a year.

Last year, the organization successfully applied for UK government funding, which covered its four counsellors for 80% of their time.

“We were optimistic that we would receive further support from the UK government for another year, but we have now learnt that our application was unsuccessful.

“In light of this, we therefore face the prospect of having to drastically reduce our vitally important face-to-face, hotline and court support counselling services, and are seeking to use every strategy we can conceive of to acquire funds to forestall this impending situation,” the statement noted.

The organization noted that it is grateful to the Guyana government for assistance already extended, however they are now forced to make an urgent request for further governmental support.

“In this context, we wish to state that the previous UN Women support to Health and Shelter was predicated on their view that the government should thereafter assume financial responsibility for a service that donor agencies do not now cover.”

The organization is also soliciting assistance from individuals and private sector businesses in addition to pursuing its own fund-raising initiatives.

“In the circumstances, we are therefore now obliged to seek overall national support that can possibly aid us to continue providing necessary psycho-social assistance to the many victims of child abuse and gender-based and sexual violence,” the statement concluded.