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162 graduate from Guyana’s first Int’l Human Rights Law course
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira (162 graduate from Guyana’s first Int’l Human Rights Law course)
Kaieteur News- One hundred and sixty-two persons graduated from the country’s International Human Rights Law Certificate course on Saturday.
The graduation ceremony was held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel, Kingston, Georgetown and facilitated by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance.
The programme which was launched on July 20, 2024 and concluded on October 12, 2024 was designed to equip public and private sector workers as well as civil society members with an understanding of Guyana’s human rights architecture in the context of international human rights.
The programme, which was conducted for 10 weeks, and had 17 sessions, focused on a plethora of topics including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Guyana’s human rights framework, the International Bill of Rights, key legislation that protects human rights in Guyana, and contemporary issues in human rights law as well as global food security.
During the ceremony, subject minister Gail Teixeira said a key element of democracy is to have an informed population.
“We discovered although many people spoke of human rights, they were not well informed about international rights conventions nor about Guyana’s constitution and laws and how these worked to enhance and protect human rights both here and internationally,” Teixeira said.
The Minister highlighted that this was particularly evident in the National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow up, the National Stakeholders Forum established by the MiniPAG, and the media.
Teixeira said, “We discussed in the latter part of 2023 designing an International Human Rights Law Certificate programme. We designed this programme internally based on our experience and decided to have a hybrid programme, mostly virtual to allow widest participation.”
Challenges
The minister disclosed that several challenges were faced during the execution of the programme. Those included difficulty identifying presenters for the courses.
“… And we are pleased that each topic was covered and we had 19 presenters, nine local experts and 10 external experts,” she said while disclosing that 1000 persons applied for the programme. However, only 200 persons were accepted.
“We tried to ensure … these participants, gender, education background and geographic location and persons in the private, public sector and civil society,” the Minister said.
She further related the third challenge was to find a coordinator for the programme, but soon realized it was better to give the Ministry’s senior research officer, Anil Persaud the additional responsibility to coordinate the course.
“This course couldn’t have worked so well without his (Persaud) constant coordination and communication with presenters and students,” the Minister said in her remarks to Persaud.
Furthermore, Teixeira stated that the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance would be making this course an annual programme.
She added, “I have also been asked to consider expanding access to the course for the diaspora who have expressed an interest in this programme as well as open to our CARICOM (Caribbean Community) sister countries.”
(162 graduate from Guyana’s first Int’l Human Rights Law course)
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