Dear Editor
DOMESTIC violence continues to attract undivided attention from the A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government because of its fixture on the national list of social ills.

Of course, there have been numerous engagements with citizens across the nation as exemplified by seminars, workshops, hosted by both the present and past administrations, non-organisations, religious organisations, cultural groups and other entities in an effort to bring more awareness to the perpetrators and victims.

However, in the absence of data, it is yet to be determined the impact which these public efforts have been making, except that it is sincerely hoped that those who would have heard its message of admonition, would have been heeding its solemn advice.

The recent two-day workshop held by the West Demerara-Essequibo Islands, Region Three Department of Education, under the auspices of its Guidance and Counselling Unit, is another in the ongoing state-sponsored efforts to combat what has become a national scourge. Held under the theme “Breaking the silence through Empowerment and Education’’, this latest effort brought together a gathering of both educators and students for a two-day seminar Anti-Domestic Violence Workshop, aimed at educating and sensitizing this very key professional collective “about domestic violence and its adverse effects”.

It is as well that this particular key collective that forms the fulcrum of any state educational system, given their continuous daily interaction within the classroom, not least Guyana’s, get together for a conversation of an issue that is a daily presence in many of their individual life experiences, as well as occurring in the general societal norm. It is even more instructive, given that it has been traditionally a custom, to be precise, where children of all ages, whether at school or not, are deemed to be abstract, and non-affected by inter-personal incidents, which take place within the confines of their homes. In fact, there is the well-known belief that they are generally unaffected by the stresses and impact that originate from such incidents.

But it is within the classroom that the frightening and degrading home circumstances, which are vividly witnessed and personally experienced by the young, are often exhibited in the form of behaviour, either viewed as unacceptable to the code of behavioral conduct for students and outside the norm of what is acceptable.

However, given modern methodologies of socio-scientific research by so many psycho-social experts, in which observatory methods have proven to be very informative in understanding and finding answers to the behaviour of children in distress, the opposite has been proven – that children of all ages are indeed greatly affected by the violence/abuse of all types within their homes, which primarily make their young lives confused, a daily nightmare, and an outright living hell.

Of course, teachers, many of them, are themselves not immune to the incidence of domestic violence, since, from media reports, many have fallen to its murderous blows, while others are surviving as helpless and cowed victims of the brutal physical and psychological environment which has become their prison. It is because of this mutual experience that such an interaction, even as separate groups, would have been necessary, for what one is certain would have been an open discussion, especially from students, on what they do witness in the intimacy of their homes, and the mental damage done to their young psyche.

The reality is that both these groups share a common milieu of a problem which affects their daily lives, without perhaps realising the great misunderstanding of each other, in a situation of daily distress, and what it eventually does in the dynamics of the classroom relationship. They both bring to the classroom a common problem that needs to be addressed, not in isolation but in a manner which brings an understanding of especially students, identifying their distress and guiding them to the necessary focal point where assistance can be accessed. Even for the affected teachers, they too can be assisted to combat such a challenge for a problem that will continue to affect their classroom performance, especially with regards their academic relationship with their student charges, if not remedied.

Noting that ‘’The objectives of the workshop are to foster and maintain self-confidence and self-worth, to learn coping mechanisms, to learn how to keep one self-protected and safe…”, among the many pointers. Further, according to senior Guidance and Counselling Officer, Priscilla Gonsalves, it was an imperative of the Guidance and Counselling Unit to take a “strong stance against domestic violence…, because we believe that a life free of domestic violence is everyone’s right…venture was introduced to restore and build lives, families, communities and our country at large one step at a time”. Such a position is commendable, as it is about a monster that continues to dwell.

Therefore, it is an initiative such as this that gives hope to the eventual reduction of this beastly act which continues to threaten the existence of our female segment of society, but, also its younger set, who are held in a captive situation because of their dependency status. It [is] hoped that this programme will be replicated in other regions throughout Guyana.
Earl Hamilton