Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
YCG records successful year despite financial constraints
YCG Executive Director, Dmitri Nicholson
By Sharmain Cornette
The support of the private sector will be especially crucial to help sustain the community oriented programmes offered by Youth Challenge Guyana (YCG) this year.
Executive Director of the Non-Governmental Organisation, Dmitri Nicholson, who expressed this opinion during an interview with this newspaper, said that the reduction of funding was among the challenges that confronted the entity in the past year.
The organisation, he said, undoubtedly suffered a setback due to the limited degree of funding and support it received from its partners and other international support. This state of affairs, he explained, was mainly due to the global economic downturn.
Nicholson noted thatYCG was however able to overcome its challenges by managing its operation with the little funds it was afforded.
He said promotional measures have since been implemented to help with fund raising activities and to generate more income. Support from the private sector will also be very much welcomed this year, he added.
“We are always asking the private sector to come onboard and see where they can support some of our programmes because it has deep community benefit for them,” Nicholson asserted.
In addition to the financial challenge, the Executive Director said that the entity had suffered in the last year through the movement of qualified staff to other industries. This, he informed, was due to the fact that salaries offered by the NGO were regarded as too small.
However, Nicholson divulged that for this year YCG anticipates a greater degree of mainstreaming of its programmes with some assistance from Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). He disclosed that his organisation has even been able to secure a small grant to commence training of staff with a view of regenerating its operation.
“We will be able to regenerate our programmes which we foresee will still be able to provide free community services in gender training, leadership training and life skills development for young people.”
Nicholson revealed that although engaging programmes in interior locations were seen as a daunting and very difficult task due to bad weather and climatic changes, measures were put in place to ensure successful ventures last year.
And this year, he said, the NGO will work even more closely with the Ministry of Education and partners within the Regional Democratic Council and the Community Toshao Councils to find ways to have the best qualified persons volunteer their skills and time to the various programmes.
As a result, Nicholson is optimistic that YCG will be able to gain greater mobility for counselling and testing in more mining areas and companies. This, he said will be attained through collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
According to him, last year efforts were made to increase the efficiency of YCG to ensure that “we can deliver our mandate to serve communities.” For this reason, he disclosed that emphasis was made to work with partners in Canada, Australia and Costa Rica to increase the number of qualified international volunteers who participate in interior programmes. These efforts he said will certainly be continued this year.
Nicholson revealed that there are plans to strengthen the NGO’s collaboration with phase two of the USAID/GHARP project from which funding has been forthcoming.
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