In other news, the Belize Association of Planners has spent the last year and a half training various community groups, civil society organizations and state agencies across the country to conduct what they refer to as catalyst projects. The objective of these projects is to bring Belize one step closer to achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. There are six small catalyst projects in all that will be implemented by six groups in the different districts. These groups all signed an MOU today with the association, and the communications officer told us more about the project.
Florence Goldson, Comms. Officer, Belize Association of Planners
"The groups that are going to be implementing the small projects have been involved with us about a year and a half and they've been receiving different training on advocacy, community mapping, women's right, and NGO management, and now we're at the point where they have written project proposals, they have identified issues that women and girls are facing in their communities and they will be implementing these projects along with their state party so either city council, state council, or village council as well as other civil society organizations in their community. And they've identified projects surrounding helping women to leave homes that are in violence, they're also looking at environmental awareness, youth mentorship, specifically for boys, they're also looking at sexual and reproductive health, financial literacy, so those are some of the projects."
Prudencia Cal, Board Member, Belmopan Active Youths
"The Belmopan Active Youths is one of the largest youth organizations in Belmopan and we have served hundreds of youths in different programs that we have done. We have been established since 2012 and so we do have programs like the membership program where we try to train people, we try to put them into positive things because a lot of things are going on in this generation so BAY is one of those making the change in Belmopan. We are getting young adults aged 21 and above to mentor these children, we have girls and boys that we work with. So with this program here, we'll be training four of young leaders. They will be passing on these skills and knowledge to the youths."
Melenie Barnes, UNICEF Rep
"It's important because the project focuses on building the capacity of communities to be able to respond to issues related to violence against women and girls. Unicef's mandate is the protection of children so it's very important for us to ensure that the intergenerational processes that support women and children are strengthened at the community level."
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