Irish provide funds for NGOs
As anyone involved with a non-governmental organisation will tell you, accessing funds to support their programmes is as much fun as a beach party on a rainy day. But for four N.G.O.s, the next three years will be less stressful financially. The government of Ireland, through its Agency for Personal Service Overseas, today entered into an agreement with a consortium of local N.G.O.s to give organisations better footing in order to carry out their work. These include Help for Progress, the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired, the Tumul Kin Centre of Learning, and the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research. According to APSO’s Regional Director Adrian Fitzgerald, and SPEAR’s Support Director Eric Henry, the agreement will go a long way towards assisting with poverty reduction.
Adrian Fitzgerald, Regional Director, APSO
“It deals with technical education for the Mayan people of the south, it also deals with the issues of blindness and health in terms of eye care for the country nationally. The programme will deal with issues of community development processes in fourteen of the country’s poorest communities through Help for Progress, and then through SPEAR. It will be looking at how to strengthen the watch-dog institutions in the country to make sure there is a high level of transparency and to at all times guarantee the best possible democratic development in Belize.”
Eric Henry, Support Direct, SPEAR
“There are three specific areas that are actually covered under the consortium. The first one looks at human resources capacity for these four different NGOs. So we’re trying to strengthen the human resources capacity to actually provide the quality of service that each NGO respectively provides to each community. The second area looks at organisational development. Again, looking at some of the internal structures within those organisations and to see how they can actually be made stronger to again deliver the services of the NGO. And then the third area looks at organisational sustainability in the long run, over the next three years. How can these organizations make a step closer towards being self sustainable.”
Adrian Fitzgerald
“The big question always is, is there enough resources? In terms of Ireland, this is the largest commitment we have made to Belize over the past few years, though it is practically tripling what we have been donating to the country. We realize that to eradicate poverty in Belize you will need probably a lot more funds. But it’ is a contribution that we can make at this time and we will continue to look at creative ways to continue our commitment to Belize in the future.”
The Society for the Promotion of Education and Research as the lead agency in the consortium will manage the entire project titled: “Capacity Building for N.G.O.s in Central America.” Funds under the APSO agreement total six hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and fifty Euros or approximately one point five million dollars. The money will be disbursed annually over the next three years.
