YCG – a fundamental contributor to health care

Jun 15, 2008 News

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The local Health Ministry, although equipped and driven in its endeavours, has over the years required the assistance of international and many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in its quest to combat HIV/AIDS.
In fact, the combating of the disease has been so decentralised that the works of a number of organisations and even individuals have from time to time been recognised, giving the assumption that some may be doing more than others.
One such organisation is Youth Challenge Guyana (YCG) which has been able to sustain several outreach programmes in various communities through which it has been able to address a number of social and health problems including HIV/AIDS to name a few.
And the work of the entity has been endorsed by the Ministry of Health, USAID/GHARP and UNFPA among others.
The NGO’s effort was also aptly recognised recently during the run-up to the launch of the local arm of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS.
YCG was bestowed with an award for Excellence in the community and Media, an accolade it obtained for a second consecutive year.
The NGO was also recognised by USAID a few years ago for going the distance in its community outreach projects which are carried out countrywide, particularly in far-flung regions.
YCG which is a partner in an international network collectively called Youth Challenge International has been in existence in Guyana since 1989.
The entity also has bases in Canada, Costa Rica and Australia.
According to YCG’s HIV/AIDS Programme Manager, Dmitri Nicholson, the mission of YCG is to facilitate the development of Youth and Communities in Guyana through meeting the challenges of work, social action and cultural exchange through ten-week community projects.
Nicholson said that ever since its 1989 establishment, YCG has exposed thousands of youths to challenging and worthwhile community service projects, which range from health, environmental research, community infrastructure, literacy and HIV/AIDS/STIs education.
According to him, young participants are able to focus their energies on projects that are identified by local communities and they are also able to make lifelong friends.
“YCG has to a large extent pioneered new ground in youth and community development through its distinctive community-based, team-oriented approach. Participants learn to recognize and harness new life and work skills which they can apply more successfully to their home and work environments upon completion of programmes,” the HIV/AIDS Manager shared.
But it is through considerable interaction with youth and involvement in community service projects that YCG’s awareness of critical issues affecting young people has been increased, he noted.
This increased awareness has led to the development of new dynamic programs that respond to some of the needs of youths.
The HIV/AIDS programme which encompasses prevention, care for orphans and vulnerable children, counselling and testing, a women’s development programme, a personal challenge and a national volunteer teacher’s programme are the activities that make up the complex youth development initiatives executed by YCG, Nicholson related.
And in order to sustain this drive, he said that over the past 17 years, YCG has worked with a number of donor agencies including the Canadian International Development Agency, United States Agency for International Development, United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Development Project, Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health.
With the commencement of an intense HIV counselling and testing project in August 2005, Nicholson said that the work of YCG took on a more challenging frontier.
However, with the support of the Ministry of Health and the USAID/GHARP Project, YCG was able to conduct mobile HIV Counselling and testing throughout communities in Regions One, Three, Four, Eight and Nine.
He said too that YCG works closely with communities where Transport is limited to the very occasional flight, truck or minibus, and are prohibitively expensive.
As such he noted that volunteers from YCG and the community leaders act as the catalyst for mobilisation for the very important health activity, working under the strict guidelines set out by National AIDS Programme Secretariat for HIV/AIDS Counselling and Testing in Guyana.
It is the hope of Ms Asmita Chand, Civil Society Coordinator of the Ministry of Health’s Health Sector Development Unit, that YCG is able to sustain its service to the local society.
According to her, although YCG receives some level of financial support from the Health Sector Development Unit (HSDU) through the World Bank/Government of Guyana HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Project, the NGO is not donor reliant.
She said that YCG is one of the larger organisations which is capable of offering quality service with the immense volunteer support programme it has.
Chand further explained that the NGO is able to train large corps of volunteers to facilitate its programmes since it receives up-to-date supplies to conduct its programmes.
She emphasised that the support of YCG can be considered fundamental since it provides a quality service which contributes significantly towards the dissemination of health care, even as she added that the other organisations should endeavour to emulate the work carried out by the NGO.

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