–women in civil society commend President Ali’s initiative

SOME women are of the opinion that some men have not done their part to be responsible members of the family and society.

Quite a few women are, in fact, breathing a sigh of relief at the launching after the launch of President, Dr Irfaan Ali’s “Men on Mission (MOM): 1000 Men Initiative”, seeing it as much- needed and long-awaited support in carrying the ball of social development in communities.

“Women would be taking on responsibility, but that is not what we want. A society can’t build with only women, there has to be gender balance.

“When I go to communities, I always try to get a gender balance in terms of roles and responsibilities,” commented Regional Chairperson of Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Vilma De Silva.

A mother of six children, five of which are boys, De Silva is the only female Regional Chairperson of the ten administrative regions.

“Building a society is not a man’s initiative or a woman’s, it has to be both and it has to be equal,” De Silva said. For De Silva, the MoM is timely, and she remains excited to see how it will be implemented in her community.

The brainchild of President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, MoM aims to bring together at least 1,000 men from across Guyana to mentor young men and boys to address the unique issues facing them. At least 3,000 men had registered to be mentors in the programme after the recent launch.

“It’s a massive task that the President has taken on and I’m really happy to see that he himself is championing such an initiative,” commented Omattie Madray, Managing Director of ChildLink.

ChildLink is a non-governmental organisation, which works on the protection of children against abuse and exploitation, empowering families and communities.

“I hope that we can see this as a long-term initiative and the men being engaged are taking it on, owning it, understanding the President’s vision and making that vision a bigger one, and a safer one for their family and community.

“This initiative is really one that is going to strengthen family life, and create safer communities for men and women,” Madray said.

It is particularly hoped that the programme will take a different angle in addressing the current scourge of violence against women facing the country. The way Madray sees it, the more Guyana is able to help men, the more women will stand to benefit.

“We need to recognise that men are a large part of solutions in terms of reducing violence and stopping violence against women and girls, and even boys,” she said.

“A lot of times we see men as the aggressor, but men too can be victims too. And if they want to reach out for help, it needs to be easily accessible.

“There aren’t a lot of services for men to access, if they are dealing with anger or loss, but we know that boys, too, are experiencing violence, and boys too need care,” Madray continued.

Former Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency (CPA), Ann Greene could not agree more about the need for more men to play their part in helping to positively mould the young boys in society.

“Children need to see behaviour modelled for them, and they have to get persons of the same sex as them, persons like themselves, to show them this model behaviour.

“You could tell boys this is how they have to do it, but they have to see it. I have more than 35 years in this work and I am saying there are not enough adequate role models for boys. So, this Men on Mission thing, it is what the boys need,” Greene posited.

According to Greene, from her experience dealing with vulnerable children, while society has a tendency to place more focus on the vulnerability of women and girls, boys are at just as much risk, if not more.

“Boys are more in trouble, definitely more. Boys are more at risk, more vulnerable. It might look like the girls but boys are more vulnerable, especially because it is so hard to get a boy to talk about it.

“Boys are extremely vulnerable and there’s not enough developmental programmes for them to keep them from offending. So, this initiative will help to deal with the vulnerabilities of the boys.”