Ministry appoints steering committee for Guy Talk programme

The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has ap­point­ed a steer­ing com­mit­tee to guide the im­ple­men­ta­tion of its Guy Talk Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­gramme, aimed at pro­mot­ing healthy mas­culin­i­ty and strength­en­ing sup­port for men.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Van­dana Mo­hit pre­sent­ed Let­ters of Ap­point­ment to com­mit­tee mem­bers at the min­istry's head of­fice in Port of Spain on Sep­tem­ber 23.

Guy Talk is a 30-day What­sApp-based pro­gramme be­ing im­ple­ment­ed through the min­istry's Gen­der Af­fairs Di­vi­sion, with tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial sup­port from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB).

The pro­gramme is de­signed to en­gage men in prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions and ac­tiv­i­ties cov­er­ing healthy mas­culin­i­ty, emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, re­spect­ful com­mu­ni­ca­tion, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, con­sent and seek­ing help.

Speak­ing at the pre­sen­ta­tion, Mo­hit said the chal­lenges fac­ing the pop­u­la­tion were in­ter­con­nect­ed and re­quired a col­lab­o­ra­tive re­sponse.

"Guy Talk is an ex­am­ple of what can be achieved when Gov­ern­ment, civ­il so­ci­ety, acad­e­mia and de­vel­op­ment part­ners work to­geth­er to­wards health­i­er re­la­tion­ships," she said.

The steer­ing com­mit­tee in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, the Min­istry of Health, the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The com­mit­tee will pro­vide strate­gic guid­ance, strength­en re­fer­ral and safe­guard­ing arrange­ments, sup­port the pro­gramme's im­ple­men­ta­tion and iden­ti­fy lessons to in­form fu­ture ini­tia­tives.

The min­istry said it would con­tin­ue work­ing with the IDB and part­ner agen­cies as prepa­ra­tions ad­vance for the pro­gramme's pre-pi­lot and sub­se­quent im­ple­men­ta­tion.

The ini­tia­tive forms part of the min­istry's ef­forts to en­cour­age pos­i­tive male en­gage­ment and pro­mote health­i­er re­la­tion­ships through col­lab­o­ra­tion among gov­ern­ment agen­cies and oth­er stake­hold­ers.