And while the law can’t make victims courageous enough to confront their abusers, another programme at the Department of Women’s Affairs is hoping to give women the self-empowerment and confidence to do better for themselves. The programme promises to equip at least one hundred and forty single mothers with the skills to earn a living with an employable or marketable skill. But while the idea is nothing new it is the first time that the Women’s Department has committed itself to follow through by providing job placement opportunities at the end of sessions.
The project is dubbed ‘Supporting Single Mothers in Belize City’ and presently a number of women are being interviewed to be trained. According to the project coordinator Elisa Castellanos it is based on government’s promise to provide more support services to single mothers. The training which will be offered for free starts on November seventeenth and will be conducted in two cycles of four months each.
Today the Women’s Department appealed to all unemployed single moms in Belize City to take advantage of the opportunity.
Elisa Castellanos, Project Coordinator
“We will be providing free training but we’re also providing job placement opportunities after the training. The participants will participate for four months in the training, gather that skill, and then at end of the four months we provide support in terms of how to create a business.
We’ll just try to make sure that the skill that they gain is not like they will learn it and sit on it but they will learn it and try to learn and generate funds for themselves. The objective of the project is to make sure that single mothers have something that they’ve learnt that they can use to generate income to better provide for their families.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
And how will the Department assist the women in doing that?
Elisa Castellanos,
“Well we will be working closely with the community, we will be approaching businesses that are relative to the fields of training we are providing and then asking them, inquiring about vacancies, reaching out to the community to help us provide that support to single mothers.”
If you are a single mother and interested in applying to the programme you can visit the Women’s Department at number twenty six Albert Street. Do it now because you only have only two more days to send in your application.
