His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu, Am­bas­sador of the Em­bassy of the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na met with Trinidad of­fi­cials to dis­cuss ar­eas for po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion in­volv­ing the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren's rights, dis­ease pre­ven­tion and gen­der-re­lat­ed mat­ters. 

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease... 

The Ho­n­ourable Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Min­is­ter with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Di­vi­son (GCA) and the Na­tion­al AIDS Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (NACC); Mr. Ian Ram­dahin, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary; Mr. Ritchie Top­pin, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (Ag.), Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices To­ba­go (CAST) and tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers met vir­tu­al­ly on Ju­ly 13, 2022 with His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu, Am­bas­sador, Em­bassy of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na. 

The meet­ing fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing ar­eas of po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion and part­ner­ship. Tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers shared in­for­ma­tion on key ini­tia­tives, pro­grammes and projects that fo­cus on the well­be­ing of women, chil­dren and per­sons in­fect­ed and af­fect­ed by HIV, which in­clude but are not lim­it­ed to: 

  Child Af­fairs Di­vi­son: the Na­tion­al Child Pol­i­cy; the Child Rights Am­bas­sadors Pro­gramme; Na­tion­al Child Reg­istry; Child Abuse Quick Course; U-Re­port Plat­form; work­ing with Care­givers Pro­gramme and bring­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences up to na­tion­al li­cens­ing stan­dard. 

  Na­tion­al AIDS Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee: the col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach with Civ­il So­ci­ety Or­ga­ni­za­tions in the na­tion­al re­sponse to HIV and AIDS to ad­dress six (6) core ar­eas: pre­ven­tion; stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion; psy­choso­cial sup­port; treat­ment and care; em­pow­er­ment and con­tin­gency re­sponse. 

  Gen­der Af­fairs Di­vi­son: the es­tab­lish­ment of In­ter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tees (IM­Cs) fo­cused on Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (DV) re­duc­tion and the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence; the de­vel­op­ment of a COVID-19 pro­to­col for DV Shel­ter; re­train­ing of sur­vivors of DV to at­tain fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence; on­go­ing Town Hall Meet­ings on GBV and fam­i­ly vi­o­lence; the launch of the Es­sen­tial Ser­vices Pack­age (ESP); the Na­tion­al Cen­tral Reg­istry on DV; and part­ner­ship with the Spot­light Ini­tia­tive to ad­vance the UN Foun­da­tion pro­gramme. To date two co­horts, have suc­cess­ful com­plet­ed the UN Foun­da­tion Train­ing which in­cludes mem­bers from the Prison Ser­vice of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Deaf Com­mu­ni­ty. 

His Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Fang Qiu com­mu­ni­cat­ed his grat­i­tude and shared the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment’s keen in­ter­est in pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of pover­ty re­duc­tion and the ad­vance­ment of the Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive; tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance as­so­ci­at­ed with dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture; med­ical and health ser­vices; ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and the de­vel­op­ment of a plat­form to share ex­pe­ri­ences and lessons learned be­tween coun­tries. 

The Ho­n­ourable Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy thanked His Ex­cel­len­cy Fang Qiu for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est. The GCA Di­vi­sion and NACC Sec­re­tari­at look for­ward to the con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion for the es­tab­lish­ment of fruit­ful part­ner­ships.