Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Sta­tis­tics from the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV), show that be­tween Au­gust last year and May 2024, there were 2,848 re­ports of do­mes­tic abuse. Dur­ing that time­frame, there were 22 deaths as a re­sult of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

This is why stake­hold­ers of the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing Pro­gramme (Mi­LAT), CADV, and the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment & Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) saw the val­ue in de­vel­op­ing a pro­gramme to ed­u­cate 90 Mi­LAT stu­dents on gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV).

Project Co­or­di­na­tor and Child Rights Ac­tivist Mar­cus Kissoon said it was his ho­n­our and al­so his du­ty to teach the young men and boys about GBV.

He said the young men knew about phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse, ha­rass­ment, and dis­crim­i­na­tion very well.

These, he said, un­der­mined the val­ues of re­spect, equal­i­ty, and jus­tice.

“It is with­out doubt that they have a unique and pow­er­ful role to play in end­ing GBV,” he said.

But Kissoon made it clear that the CADV and the young men and boys could not do it alone and he chal­lenged the State to do its part.

“It is time that we en­sure that young men are ex­posed to pos­i­tive me­dia...that helps us un­do the tox­ic and harm­ful traits that have been en­grained through so­cial­i­sa­tion,” he said.

Kiss­son be­lieves this ap­proach will help cre­ate a gen­er­a­tion of men who are aware of the is­sues but al­so equipped to bring on mean­ing­ful change as they al­so heal from their trau­mas.

Mi­LAT pro­gramme di­rec­tor Lieu­tenant (Naval) An­tho­ny God­dard said pro­grammes such as these en­cour­aged the young men to come out of their com­fort zone and ex­press their feel­ings.

“You can see a lot more ex­pres­sive­ness,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia se­nior re­porter Akash Sama­roo and this re­porter par­tic­i­pat­ed in three ses­sions of the course and spoke to the young men and boys about jour­nal­ism and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

At the end of the pro­gramme, the stu­dents host­ed an art ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tled Colours of Peace, Young Men Con­fronting GBV, which was held yes­ter­day at the cam­pus on Mau­si­ca Road.

The stu­dents put 31 paint­ings on dis­play, per­formed a skit on DMV, and re­cit­ed a po­em as part of the Art Ex­hi­bi­tion.