By Naomi Parris

DOMESTIC Violence is a complex issue, where many women often find themselves living or depending on their abusers for their basic necessities, leaving them feeling hopeless and trapped.
Given its prevalence in Guyana, Director of the Seventh Day Adventist, Women’s and Children Ministries, Carolyn Brandon is seeking to remind women of the many ‘safety nets’ available to help them out of an abusive relationship, especially a local church. “As a church, we are constantly seeking to have this [epidemic] being overcome; of persons being abused, and I would want to say violated in a manner that nobody approves of. As a church, we are constantly engaged in seeking to overcome what I would want to deem a plague in our society,” she said.
Brandon, during a recent interview with this publication, said the Seventh Day Adventist Church has its own initiative to curb the epidemic of domestic violence in Guyana.

“We have the ‘End it Now’ initiative that is ongoing, and we endeavour to help women understand that they do not have to live with abuse; they do not have to be subject to violence,” she said, adding: “And it goes the same way for men. It is something customary in our organisation to help women to understand that their role does not require them being abused or subjected to violence.”Brandon’s role in the ‘End it Now’ initiative is to help women develop their morale in values, and become more independent through basic literacy classes, computer literacy, general educational development (GED) tutoring, life skills classes and other courses. “What we seek to do is help them in terms of their literacy; in terms of their schooling. We also help them in terms of their coping; we help them to understand that they don’t have to withstand abuse,” she said.

“We just give them the tools that they can develop their personal well-being, so that they can be independent. What we do is not just address the violence, but we seek to create avenues so that they can build themselves and build their self-esteem.” Meanwhile, well-known author and fashion designer, Sonia Noel has also been using her platform and the fashion industry to provide help and comfort to women who find themselves in abusive relationships. Noel, having seen and felt the pain of domestic violence first-hand, said: “Every time I read something regarding domestic violence, I go back to my mother. When somebody dies, I think that it could have been her; my earlier childhood. That is the house that I grow up in.”
Seeing her mother endure years of abuse prompted Noel to create the many platforms she has today. “That is why one of the reasons when I started Fashion Week and those fashion events, I’ve always included some aspect of it, because it is close to my heart,” Noel said, adding:

“I find people move forward more when they have that feeling that someone has their back. But when you jump, not knowing if a parachute is going to open, you wonder who is going to be there to help me. It’s a difficult position to be in.” Noel believes that society needs to have an open discussion on the issue, if they want the scourge to be eliminated. “I’m coming to the realisation that we have to have more conversations with both genders, because we have a lot of broken boys going into relationships. Society has their own perception of what a man should be, or what a boy should be; it has to go back to how we are raising our boys. “You can’t give what you don’t have; a lot of boys are growing up without any love at all,” Noel said. “We have to get to the root, every time. We can’t just put a plaster on the sore; it has to go deeper than that,” she added.