Guyana Spotlight Initiative Project -Sensitisation Session on the Partnership for Peace Violence Intervention Programme

“I am especially heartened because I feel very often in our programmes we focus on women, intervening and getting them out of tough situations, and we also focus heavily on prevention when it comes to women and people who experience gender-based abuse; however, now we will also focus on this missing element where we're tackling people who are perpetrators of abuse and violence. I think the missing piece of the jigsaw has finally been put in place.”

These were some of the remarks made by the Honourable Minister Dr. Vindhya Persaud, Ministry of Human Services and Social Security in Guyana as she opened the sensitisation session for the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Violence Intervention Programme on September 20, 2021 which marks the beginning of the Programme in Guyana. The PfP Violence Intervention Programme, which has been rolled out since 2010 in other countries in the Caribbean such as Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago, is a court-ordered 16-session psycho-educational programme designed for small-groups of court-sanctioned perpetrators which contains both therapeutic and educational components to support perpetrators to engage in non-violent behaviours.

A key objective of PfP Violence Intervention Programme is to ensure that perpetrators accept responsibility for their behaviours, and recognize the costs to their partners, children, families and communities. Ultimately, this intervention programme seeks to engage perpetrators to make the necessary changes in their lives to restore peace within their families and communities and to ensure safety to victims.

The Partnership for Peace Violence intervention Programme invites participants to examine their own lives to determine where the violent behaviour began, and takes a trauma-informed approach to persons with adverse childhood experiences. The sessions also model an atmosphere of respect within the group, prohibiting disrespectful and disruptive behaviour. Like the Spotlight Initiative, it includes a comprehensive approach to prevention, acknowledging violence as a lifecycle issue that must be deterred.

At the start of the sensitisation session, Representative, UN Women Multi Country Office – Caribbean, Tonni Brodber also highlighted the importance of the PfP intervention in continued efforts to eradicate violence against women and girls in Guyana. 

Brodber explained: “…the PfP was recognised as an important strategy under the Prevention Pillar of the Spotlight Initiative Project in Guyana, and even in the wider Caribbean region. It is a secondary prevention strategy within the criminal justice sector… it focuses on rehabilitation and deterrence through building skills on themes such as effective communication, coping with stress, conflict resolution, negotiating and anger management, among others, in order to provide concrete alternatives to violent behaviours.”

Two experts, Jacqueline Sealy Burke and Shane Joseph, who were members of the UN Women PfP Expert Group that developed the PfP Programme Manual and PfP Tools, conducted the sensitisation session. The programme has been proven, when effectively implemented and embedded in multi-agency partnerships, to help reduce repeat cases of domestic violence, strengthening the effectiveness of efforts within the criminal justice system to make perpetrators effectively accountable for their actions and serving a protective function for victims.

The activity was conducted within the framework of Pillar 3 of the ongoing EU funded-Spotlight Initiative Project in Guyana, which focuses on gender inequitable social norms, attitudes and behaviours change at community and individual levels to prevent violence against women and girls and harmful practices.

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