Friday, March 27, 2009

LAUNCH OF COMMUNITY SUPPORT NETWORK VOLUNTEERS IN ST PATRICK AND ST MARK

St. George’s, Grenada, March 27, 2009 - GNOW will be launching the Community Support Network Volunteers (CSNV) in St Patrick and St Mark on Sunday March 29, 2009.

The main speaker is expected to be Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, Parliamentary Representative for St Patrick’s East.

The Community Support Network is part of a project “Support Network for Women Experiencing Gender-based Violence”.

It is supported by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women.

The theme of the Volunteer Network is "Strengthening Communities by Supporting Women to Overcome Gender-Based Violence". Therefore, the community volunteers will provide informal support to victims and encourage them to stand for their rights and report matters of domestic violence, rape, etc to the existing formal systems.

In preparation for this programme, forty-two (42) volunteers would have undergone at least twenty-eight (28) hours of training from February to March on topics such as Gender Relations, Legal and Psychological Concepts of Violence against Women, Paraprofessional Counselling, Existing Mechanisms and Services for Addressing Violence against Women and Overcoming Issues Related to Gender-based Violence. In addition, the 38 women and 4 men would have indicated their commitment to be volunteers in the Network for at least two years.

This launch brings the total number of trained women and men who are volunteers in this islandwide network to one hundred. Training and launch of volunteers in Carriacou and Petite Martinique is being planned for May 11 – 17, 2009. Interested men and women are encouraged to apply.

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