In light of the gruesome murder of 13 year old school boy Leonard Archibald of Brothers Village, East Bank Berbice, one of the leading civil society body the National Coordinating Coalition Inc. (NCC) met to strategize on how to better engage government on child protection issues.
The NCC which comprises of 34 NGO members that provide social support and services to their communities across Guyana, calls for affirmative action to be taken by key government agencies such as the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Protection, and Ministry of Public Security to address the enforcement of Child Protection policies and to rectify the nonfunctioning aspect of inter-ministry coordination and communication that results in children being raped, sodomised, abused and even murdered.
According to Chairman of the NCC, Dmitri Nicholson, coming on the heels Archibald’s incident civil society can be socially contracted to implement current programmes such as the Ministry of Education and Childlink’s ‘TELL SCHEME”, which create awareness for children on how to communicate being touched inappropriately. Additionally, to provide training on how to respond and provide appropriate support to families and victims of cases of child abuse and neglect.
The NCC is also advocating that the Ministry of Education gives permission for NGOs staff to work in schools to provide counselling and child rights and abuse education awareness.
The one day civil society workshop saw participation from members of the National Coordinating Coalition Inc. (NCC) from seven of the 10 geographic regions in Guyana.