Guyana tackling school-based crimes via Champions for Change Clubs

Guyana is one of five countries in CARIFORUM to benefit from an initiative to enhance its education sector to respond to school-based crime and violence at the primary level, through the institutionalisation of structured and coordinated after school activity clubs, titled Champions for Change Clubs (CCC).

At a workshop to be held from 23 to 27 September, in Georgetown, participants will benefit from necessary training for establishing and managing CCCs, including human resource management, CCC programme design, marketing, financing and budgeting, among other issues.

The training, is a deliverable of the Crime and Violence Prevention component of the CARIFORUM–EU Crime and Security Programme under the Tenth European Development Fund. This programme’s approach to tackling crime and security focuses on drug demand and supply reduction, crime prevention, and social development, and capacity-building of law enforcement and security agencies.

The intervention is part of an overall strategy to reduce the incidence of violence in and out of school through engaging students and youth in the community in after-school programmes and building their capacity to effectively address youth crime and violence from a social perspective. The training programme covers life skills development, mentoring and parenting skills conducted by expert facilitators.

According to Project Manager, Louis Dodson, “the training will build the capacity of teachers, students and community members to successfully address crime and violence in their schools and communities”.

“It is a follow-up to a number of activities, including data collection and analysis in selected schools and surrounding communities in the five target countries, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Suriname,” he said.

He added that the data were collected through rapid assessments of risks threats and protective factors in the selected schools and surrounding communities in the five aforementioned Member States.

Crime and insecurity, the Project Manager noted, remained one of the principal obstacles to social and economic development in the Caribbean Region. Conservative estimates place annual direct expenditure on youth-related crime and violence in five CARICOM States between 2.8 per cent and 4 per cent of GDP. (Chaaban, 2009).

In July 2014, CARICOM Heads of Government approved its Community Strategic Plan for 2015-2019. That plan identified six strategic priorities. Deepening Crime Prevention Initiatives and Programmes is an area of focus in the strategic priority of Building the Social Resilience of the Community.

Reporting by Volderine Hackett

Source: CARICOM TODAY