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– honoured for advancing gender issues
Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand last week explored the possibility of creating advanced training programmes for social services workers in Guyana while on a visit to Lesley University and the Margaret Clemons Foundation, during which she was honoured for her work on gender issues.

The training, which could include Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, as well as certified programmes in counselling and expressive therapies would initially target social services providers working with children and women. The training would help to further professionalize social services in Guyana.

According to a press release, the training programmes will be built on cutting edge expressive art therapies approaches in which counsellors will engage clients in the healing process through the therapeutic use of the arts.

Human Services and Social Security Minister Priya Manickchand discusses possible collaboration with Lesley President Joe Moore.
Last Wednesday, the release said, the Minister observed a Masters’ level course offered by the US based university which is designed to train counsellors in expressive art therapy and to address issues of power, privilege and culture in counselling.

Manickchand later joined Lesley University Provost Martha McKenna; Lesley University Under Graduate Dean, Mary Coleman; other members of the University faculty along with the president and staff of the Margaret Clemons Foundation in a series of meetings to explore possible options for the design of the counsellor training programs.

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The Ministry of Human Services and Social Security will be sending four senior staff members and a staff member of Help and Shelter, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they will attend the Peaceable Schools & Communities Institute (PSCI) at Lesley University. 

The team will be travelling to the United States next week, where they will be introduced to arts-based strategies used in education and therapist training and will see how the arts can be used to achieve awareness, healing and transformation.  

They will be instructed by doctors Ulric Johnson of Springfield College of Human Services and Linda Brion-Meisels of Lesley University; who will enlighten them on the strategies to prevent, intervene and heal the challenges of domestic and gender-related violence that many face in their communities. 

During their three-day stint at the Peaceable Schools and Communities Institute, the five participants from Guyana will join with educators and social service professionals from across the US to engage in discussions based on prevention and intervention strategies. 

This initiative is being sponsored by the Margaret Clemons Foundation (MCF); a New York based non-profit organisation, whose mission is to prevent violence, particularly against women and children. 

“I am privileged to have the opportunity to serve the people of Guyana and to work with Priya Manickchand to sponsor programming for the Ministry’s staff and to begin the development of sustainable programming that will reach all of the people of Guyana,” said Margaret Clemons of the MCF.

She further commended Minister Manickchand for her tireless efforts in defending women and children.

Clemons will be visiting Guyana in late July, to meet with Minister Manickchand, and the staff of Help & Shelter and the social service professionals who participated in the Peaceable Schools program as a follow up to their visit. She will also discuss future collaborative efforts between the MCF and the Ministry. 

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