The Women's Issues Network of Belize, a non-governmental organization that champions the cause of Women in Belize got a major institutional boost today, as its Executive Director, Carolyn Reynolds accepted a check for Ninety Nine thousand US dollars from Kelly Mc Carthy of the United States Embassy of Belize.
The money is granted by the US Secretary of State's office of Global Women's Issues. It is a grant intended to fund a specific project that will increase access to Justice, Psycho-Social and Rehabilitative Services for Victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Domestic Violence. So does all that money come with any strings attached?
Kelly McCarthy, US Embassy Press Officer
"They do need to use it for the project that was submitted so in a sense of a strain; that would be a strain that they can't use it for things outside of the project proposal, otherwise no. Money was given to them to implement their project that they propose to use for their budget that they describe to us in their proposal. Their proposal demonstrated a lot of community commitment and it be a network of NGOs throughout Belize I think is one of its strengths."
Carolyn Reynolds, Executive Director - WIN
"We are going to use the funding to assist victims of gender base violence and those of commercial sexual exploitation. Doing education, prevention and care so when we talk about psycho social care and counseling for those who are affected by these issues. On an annual base there is approximately about 1,400 cases of domestic violence and now its increasing in getting more violent with partners killing more homicide and so we have seen the increase and also with the commercial sexual exploitation of children and because of that and the agencies that work in these areas this is why we access this funding through the US Embassy."
The Secretary of State's office of Global Women's Issues received a total of three hundred and thirty proposals, and WIN was one of only 57 NGO's that was selected for the small grant initiative.
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