The donation, to boost the organisation’s capacity for continuing its efforts in education, was made possible through the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).

It will go towards the establishment of a computer centre to introduce Internet training skills for underprivileged women and girls.

With the imminent opening of the facility at YWCA Brickdam, Georgetown headquarters, the beneficiaries will be able to use computers and access the Internet and accomplish needed training, which was otherwise impossible because of their economic circumstances.

Handing over the cheque and equipment to YWCA President, Ms Dhanmattie Sohai, Glover said he very much likes helping projects of the sort.

He also promised more aid, nearly another G$1M over the next 12 months.

The diplomat said DFID financial assistance will be available in the areas of training trainers and meeting employment, renovation and installation costs.

Glover said education, water, forestry and land administration are macro-economic programmes in which the British, through DFID, are currently engaged and they are of help not only with poverty alleviation but also enhancement of basic rights.

“However, these smaller projects, such as today’s, reach individuals more directly at grassroots level. As I have said many times, at the end of the day, it’s people who really matter. It’s helping people to help themselves,” he remarked.

Glover said the brand new six ‘Compaq’ desktop computers (server included), three printers and one modem were surplus to DFID’s requirement at the High Commission here.

Noting that it is a world of gender equality where some would say men have had it good for hundreds of years, the envoy declared: “I am absolutely thrilled to pieces to help, yet again, women and young girls in this country to take a further step forward.”

The High Commissioner said, over the years, YWCA has done a great deal to help needy women and girls, having started a pioneering programme for early school leavers and provided training in handicraft and other marketable skills.

Sohai, expressing gratitude to the donor for the humanitarian gesture, assured Glover it would really go a long way to help less fortunate women and girls get into the information technology (IT) age.

“We are going to give the girls, firstly at the May Rodrigues Vocational Centre, the opportunity to get on to the net, the place that has made access to information so much easier,” she said.

She also thanked the Director, Ms Anne-Marie Changnon and Mr. Keith Burrowes, also of Building Community Capacity Project (BCCP), for his tremendous help towards moving YWCA further on.

Burrowes pointed to the vast improvement at YWCA in the last four years and the quality of work it does, in terms of assisting less fortunate young women.

He stressed that BCCP recognises the need for collaboration among non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Government, the donor community and the Private Sector.

“We were very happy to be part of the whole process and we believe that the only way NGOs could expand their operations and offer service to the beneficiaries is if they collaborate with each other,” Burrowes emphasised.