Gov't pledges support for Help and Shelter home
Assistance also planned for Legal Aid clinic
Stabroek News
January 30, 2003
The government says it will support Help and Shelter, which needs a $4.2M annual subvention to keep its home for abused women and children open.
At his post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon said Cabinet had decided to make its intervention "more comprehensive."
With this in mind, he said Cabinet has mandated the Minister of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Dr Dale Bisnauth to provide a plan of action for next week's Cabinet meeting. This would outline a way forward in which state re-sources and those of the broader community might go towards a "truly comprehensive arrangement to support victims of domestic violence."
On Monday, Help and Shelter announced that by February 1 it would have to close down the shelter which has provided a home to some 98 domestic violence victims since its inception in 2001.
Following a front-page story in Tuesday's Stabroek News, Didco Trading Company came forward the same day with a donation of $341,000 in an effort to keep the shelter open. The operational cost per month is $347,000.
Dr Luncheon also said that the funding difficulties experienced by the Legal Aid Clinic in Georgetown were also brought to the government's attention and Cabinet has also taken a decision to assist. In the case of Legal Aid, he said that funding has been provided but on a temporary basis. He said it was Cabinet's intention to provide assistance to Legal Aid which would benefit a larger cross-section of Guyana's poor and indigent across the country.
