Japan donates to NGO?s
As non-governmental organizations continue to struggle for financial sustainability, any assistance, from whatever source is always good news. Today three grassroots N.G.O.’s got a helping hand from the Government of Japan as that country’s Ambassador to Belize, Terusuke Terada, signed three separate contracts for grassroots projects totaling over sixty six thousand U.S. dollars. The biggest disbursement of funds was to the National Organization for the Prevention of Child Abuse to start up a Young Parenting Education Project in the Stann Creek and Toledo Districts. NOPCA’s Executive Director Lorna McDougall signed on behalf of her organization and took receipt of the check for twenty seven thousand, two hundred and ninety seven U.S. dollars.
Lorna McDougall, Executive Director, NOPCA
“We found out that there was a great demand for parenting education, considering that the faces of parents have been changing and continue to change. We know, those of us who live in Belize that we now have a severe, or major problem of teenage pregnancy. Children are indeed having children and these are children who themselves have not gained their level of maturity and so does not have the kind of knowledge or skill that would enable them to be effective parents.”
While NOPCA will use the money to try and make parenting less challenging for first time parents, the Addiction Alert Organization will use its share of the donation, eighteen thousand five hundred and ninety five dollars, to furnish its wood workshop at the Listowel Boys Training School in Central Farm.
Marshall Nunez, Board of Directors, Addiction Alert
“Drug abuse, substance abuse is in fact almost the same way that it was back in 1991 if not higher and there is in fact the need to fight it. Addiction Alert Organization of Belize continues in its efforts to address this crisis, one that has become national now. We do not have the funding, but we continue to work. The grant from the Government and people of Japan will no doubt go a long, long way in furnishing and rehabilitating the workshop at the Listowel Boys Facility and that will contribute as the program rightly says to re-integrating some of our clients back into society where they can be productive.”
Terusuke Terada, Japanese Ambassador to Belize
“I don’t have to emphasize then again here, that we attach a great importance to the question of accountability of Non-Governmental Organizations. Incidentally, since I presented my credentials to the Government of Belize more than two years and three months ago I have decided that something new should be implemented for the benefit or betterment of that relationship between Japan and Belize, my first answer is to take a good look at these N.G.O.’s.”
The third organization to receive grant assistance for the Japanese Government was the National 4-H Club which received twenty thousand U.S. dollars to buy a vehicle to support its Pig Rearing Project.
