The Labour, Human Services and Social Security Ministry is empowering parents to better support their children by ensuring that they complete secondary school. The latest initiative, the government’s School Retention and Child Labour Prevention Programme includes a series of workshops targeting parents in the Kuru Kuru, Soesdyke area in an effort to develop their parenting skills. The objective of the project – being executed by the ministry with support from the ILO/ IPEC Tackling Child Labour Through Education (Tackle) Project–is to empower parents to prevent children becoming victims of child labour, truants, or school dropouts, the ministry said in a statement.
The programme also includes counselling for parents and children, and providing children with hot meals, snacks, and transportation to attend school. Parenting education workshops were conducted during the past week for about 100 parents and guardians of pupils of the Kuru Kuru nursery and primary schools and the Dora Secondary School.
According to the ministry, the parenting education workshop aims to provide improved skills for effective parenting to strengthen and advance their understanding of different personalities, and the psychosocial and emotional development of children.
The importance of education, school attendance, and participation in school activities and community development were underscored. Parents were also educated about contributory factors to child abuse, child labour, children’s rights, truancy, and school dropouts, and how these factors impact children’s educational development.
Community parent squads
The training also sought to develop parenting skills and provide guidelines to prevent and address child abuse and child labour. The workshop also explored initiatives such as the establishment of community parent squads to monitor and report on social issues negatively affecting the educational development of children with the aim of preventing and or eradicating such issues.
It also reviewed the possibility of establishing a mechanism to improve punctuality at schools and high students’ participation in school activities.
Individuals were identified to form community parent squads in the various communities.
The workshop was welcomed by parents, guardians, and teachers who expressed appreciation for the sessions on developing parenting skills, child abuse, child labour, and rights of the child.
They requested that such workshops be held regularly across the country.
At the closing ceremony, Labour, Human Services and Social Security Ministry Permanent Secretary Lorene Baird reflected on the positive results of traditional parenting.
She noted the challenges of modern-day parenting, and encouraged the participants to draw on the best practices disseminated through the workshop to enhance their parenting skills.
She also highlighted some interventions by government to facilitate improved family life in Guyana, so that children can remain in schools, hence eradicating social issues such as child labour, truancy and early school leaving.
Among the interventions mentioned are the enactment of the Child Protection Act that established the Child Protection Agency, and the establishment of the Women of Worth Project to financially empower single mothers by providing them with micro credit.
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