Three NGOs share $52,000 in donations
As the outgoing administration of Uncle Sam rounds its final lap, it is making good on its commitments to the projects that were deemed eligible for grant funding. Today, four bodies received donations from U.S. Ambassador Robert Dieter for what is called the Ambassador’s HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme. The focus is placed squarely on education and awareness and that’s where the Ministry of Education and the other recipients: YWCA, the Belize Red Cross Society, and Equity House of Hopkins Village will concentrate their efforts and their combined donation of twenty-six thousand U.S. dollars.
Robert Dieter, U.S. Ambassador to Belize
“This is the fifth year that the U.S. Government has participated in this particular program and these awards are made to groups that are most likely not gonna get funding to support these kinds of activities.”
Marion Ali
“Is there anything in particular the government would like to see done with the money?”
Robert Dieter
“Yeah, each of the groups submits an application, we review the applications and then we work with the groups with regard to what it is that we want to get result wise. One of the things that I’m particularly pleased about is that we’re continuing to do a poster competition in the primary schools. This will be the third year of that competition; that’s the initiative that we work with the Ministry of Education on. We use selected posters from that competition to produce a calendar that we distribute every year. Last year we used the artwork to produce a book cover and we produced ten thousand of those for distribution in the primary schools to reach that demographic. I’m very proud of that particular initiative to involve and engage young people in this awareness campaign.”
Sonia Linares, Executive Dir., Y.W.C.A.
“They are not using the information in a positive way so the staff came up with an idea where they try to get them in groups and come with a plan and what we are going to do at the end of the session, have an essay competition to see how much knowledge the gained from the workshop and they’re going to get a prize for that. We’re also going to continue the barbershop advertisement and we thought that that went really well, we had a lot of positive comments on that ad so we’re going to do that. The barbers designed that ad themselves and they were they were the actors within the program so we’re going to do that. We’re also going to put a billboard. Again, get them to design an attractive billboard with HIV messages and we’ll put it up at a strategic location so that the public can see it. We have a school with sixty-five girls and part of our program is our life skills and within the life skills we have health education and all those things are involved and so we find from time to time, they get pregnant and by getting pregnant, you know what all could happen with that.”
Marion Ali
“Have they come out and said why they don’t practice safe sex?”
Sonia Linares
“They do. Many of them—a particular one of them, they said miss I did use the condom, the condom burst. And some would just hang down their head and I made a mistake you know. Some of them would just not say anything so those are the areas we have to look.”
Nelson Longsworth, Dir., QUADS, Min. of Ed.
“It lies within the individual and the behavior they practice, in this case sexual behavior. It is developing young people’s skills for them to exercise the healthy choices that they need to make in their lives. It’s not something that can happen overnight because cultures play a big role in what we do even with these individual who will have to work with the teachers along with this. This complements what we did in school, for them to eventually not only practice safe sexual practices as they get older, but also to encourage others to do the same because it’s all of us who have to come together to fight this disease.”
In related funding news, the Mercy Care Center has had it own share of financial challenges, but tonight there is a silver lining. The Center has been gifted with four thousand dollars by Fortis Inc. The monies will be used to provide food and health services to the elderly and underprivileged through the Mercy Kitchen and the St. Joseph Mercy Clinic. The cheque was presented by B.E.L.’s Dawn Sampson on behalf of Fortis to Andre O’Brien.
