NOPCAN seeks funding to survive
It’s birth and rise to prominence in the world of Belizean NGOs coincided in the early 1990’s with the rapid growth of the nation’s privately owned media. With its articulate spokeswoman and righteous cause, the organisation now known as NOPCAN, the National Organisation for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, quickly gained a high profile as the front line advocate for our nation’s youngest citizens. But the public activities obscured NOPCAN’s internal problems, particularly that of financing its many initiatives. Now, with NOPCAN’s future in doubt, the executive director is turning to the public to help its good works continue.
Jacqueline Woods
“What happened over the years to cause NOPCAN to be in this position?”
Lorna McDougal, Executive Director, NOPCAN
“It has always been difficult because however much funding you get for programming, funders do not want to pay for current costs, and that’s where the difficulty lies. And so it has been for the past ten years it has always been a struggle. But the situation has gotten even worse now because there is a competition going on–if I may call it that–because you have so many organisations competing for the same pot of money. And they are other issues now that have become priority, for instance, HIV/AIDS, environmental issues and so on. So we have to try to develop, be creative, be innovative in terms of coming up with those strategies that will help us to access the funds for child abuse prevention. And it has come to the time when we really need to do something to try and keep things going.”
Jacqueline Woods
“How much money are you looking to raise from this activity?”
Lorna McDougal
“Well, we have set our target to a hundred thousand dollars, but whatever little we get, we surely will try to make it work. We have to, as much as possible, be able to take care of our current cost. And that’s the biggest part of it, it’s not so much the programmes, but to maintain the current cost.”
NOPCAN’s radiothon will take place at the B.T.L. Park from eleven a.m. to seven p.m. on Saturday. Regular live updates will be provided courtesy of Love FM.
