Saving lives from the cruelty of abuse through loving support and vital interventions is what the East Berbice Life Savers’ Club was founded to do.
The club, whose motto is “We Care”, was organised as a result of the numerous interventions made by persons trained in gender-based and sexual offences at Roadside Baptist Church Skills Training Centre.
In an interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine, Yatrawatee Katryan of the Roadside Baptist Church Skills Training Centre, said the monstrous plague of gender-based violence against women and girls, especially domestic and sexual violence, is the catalyst that propelled Roadside Baptist about 12 years ago to identify and train a core group of persons to make interventions and work with those directly or indirectly affected by gender-based violence, and to work with perpetrators as well.
East Berbice Life Savers’ Club was officially launched in 2003 by Varshnie Singh, First Lady at the time, at one of the centre’s annual graduation ceremonies. About 100 persons were present at the launch.
Katryan said that the membership at that time, about 25 members, included school welfare officers, a community development officer of Skeldon Sugar Estate, religious leaders, office and community workers and housewives and teachers from the entire Region Six inclusive of Black Bush Polder. They were trained in the areas of domestic violence, child abuse, suicide prevention, and counselling skills. Katryan disclosed that suicide is still a matter of grave concern in Region Six.
She pointed out that over the years, the group, in collaboration with Roadside Baptist, conducted several awareness sessions at different locations including Orealla, Siparuta and Black Bush Polder. Besides awareness sessions, they also made numerous interventions with individuals and families affected by domestic and other forms of violence.
Interventions, Katryan explained, include counselling at either Roadside Baptist, at individuals’ homes or at places mutually agreed upon, accompanying victims to the police station, and for medical services as well as even giving support to court cases. She added that other instances of support are in the form of cash or in kind contributions and even providing safe spaces/shelter to victims and children.
“Help and Shelter is of great assistance, and made the necessary arrangements once in the night to accommodate a female and her young girl children who were travelling from the Corentyne to their safe place. At one time, quite a few years ago, even Camal’s Children’s Home on the Corentyne accommodated a female victim and her young children for a short while, through discussions by Ms Nalin Katryan, CEO of the Life Savers and Mrs Carmen Kissoon. We’re very thankful to these individuals,” Katryan related.
She pointed out that since launching of the Life Savers’ Club, some members have migrated. The group was dormant for a while but individual members were still involved in interventions, and Roadside Baptist never ceased from continually training others in counselling skills and gender-based violence prevention. In 2012, the group was resuscitated, and those trained are now actively involved with Life Savers. The most recent training for the new recruits was conducted this year during the months of January to July for 25 youths and 25 adults.
Of the 50 trainees, 25 were trained in counselling skills and are busy in their communities, sharing information. Additionally, capacity building to enhance the skills of Life Savers is ongoing, and only recently two full days of training were conducted at Roadside to update previous trainees with the Sexual Offence and Domestic Violence Acts and the Child Protection Policy.
Quarterly meetings are held by the group, at which time they share and discuss challenges and positive results. Life Savers is fully supported by the Guyana Police Force and from time to time CEO, Nalin Katryan, communicates with the Commander of Division “B” and the Officer in Charge at Springlands Police Station. At the start of the gender-based violence programme, discussions were held with the then Commissioner of Police. Notably, three police officers were among the last batch of trainees.
Trainers over the years include Rosemarie Terborg, Beverly Braithwaite Chan, Paulette Henry, Karen De Souza, Luella Chichester, Vidyaratha Kissoon, Dionne McCammon and Varshnie Singh.
