Guyana initiative.
Locations:
Region 6, East Berbice-Corentyne
Partners:
Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association, Ministry of Education, University of Guyana Berbice Campus
Focus:
The Guyana initiative worked to facilitate discussions and activities to enhance awareness and understanding of health topics with youth in Guyanese communities. The main focus of these health topics was mental health awareness. We focused on aspects such as suicide prevention, mental illness and stigma. Our Peer Educators worked with like-minded organizations and schools to work with peers within and outside the classroom.
Initiative Goals:
Establish evaluation methods (qualitative and quantitative) to critically assess our impact on communities.
Establish further the history of QHO in Guyana.
Create relationships with local NGOs in which we can have hands-on experience with students to train them to facilitate discussions about mental health in our absence.
Facilitate expansion opportunities into different regions of Guyana.
Establish a relationship with the University of Guyana Berbice campus and implement a strategy to incorporate our health curriculum to students and faculty.
The Guyana initiative was the first to be established by QHO in 1989. Beginning in the summer of 1989, Georgetown, Guyana was chosen as a location for a medical outreach program run by medical students. Queen’s Medical Outreach evolved into Queen’s Health Outreach, and a focus on health education rather than medical aid was created. Eventually, a rural location, Berbice, was added as the second initiative in Guyana in 2014. This past year QHO decided to move out of Georgetown, making the 2018-2019 Georgetown initiative the last initiative in Guyana’s capital city for the foreseeable future. The Guyana Initiative, like QHO as a whole, is continually evolving to work towards becoming more sustainable and to create new partnerships to enhance the work of existing groups in Guyana. We are currently attempting to focus on more sustainable opportunities and the growth of the initiative in Berbice and prospective new locations in Guyana.
“I feel incredibly thankful that I have had the opportunity to participate in QHO. From the feedback we got on initiative, I know that the students, teachers and community members in Berbice found our work valuable and, on a personal level, I know the experience definitely was for me. I learned so much in so many different ways and can’t fit it all in so few words. I joined QHO to work with a team of passionate, smart, driven individuals to make an impact in the lives of people here and abroad, and that is exactly what I got to do. QHO has allowed me to partake in and create real positive change, and has certainly done the same within me.”
- Isabelle, 2018-19 Guyana PE, Berbice
“One word to describe my QHO experience is IMPACTFUL. I joined QHO because I wished to have an impact on and serve as a positive role model in the lives of others. I believe my time in Guyana was very impactful for the time I was there, allowing me the chance to really try and facilitate opportunities for youth in a different community. Not only that, I personally was impacted by my time with QHO, getting to learn new things, make new friends, and truly grow as a human being during my time both on initiative and throughout the school year with the organization.”
- Logan, 2018-19 Guyana PE, Berbice
“Being a member of Queen's Health Outreach has been one of the most incredible experiences of my time at Queen’s! I am so grateful for all of the connections that I had the opportunity to make with the students, school faculty, community members and my fellow peer educators this summer while on Initiative in Guyana.”
- Caitlin, 2018-19 Guyana PE, Berbice
“QHO has been an incredible highlight of my time at Queen’s University. Being able to meet like-minded people and collaborate with communities all over the world has been a valuable experience that promotes one of QHO’s main principles - mutual learning. I have grown as a person and learned so much throughout my time in the organization!”