Stabroek News
July 8, 2001

Government is currently going through the legal procedure for the purchase of the Genesis Home for Battered Women for the sum of $1 from its current owners, Minister in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Bibi Shadick, said.
Provision has been made in this year's budget for the management of the facility, which has been in operation for the past two years. During that period, government also provided a subvention to aid in the running of the home.
The Genesis Home suspended its operations on June 1, to facilitate a changeover in the ownership and management of the home from a non-governmental organisation to government. The changeover is due to difficulties encountered in effectively managing the home after two of the major sources of funding dried up. The assets were informally handed over to government in early June.
The purchase of the home to make it government property, Shadick told Stabroek News, after the budget debate and considerations of the estimates ended in Parliament on Thursday evening, was necessary for government to adequately fund and manage it. It is expected that the sale of the property would be in the vicinity of $1.
It had been anticipated that the changeover would have taken two weeks but it has taken a while longer.
For the two years since the home opened its doors, it was privately run as a non-profit organisation by an administrator who was accountable to a board of directors. The last administrator of the Genesis Home, Carmelite nun Sister Jacintha had told Stabroek News that the board had taken a collective decision in August last year to ask government to take over the project after the major sources of funding had dried up. Discussions had begun with former minister of human services and social security, Indra Chandarpal.
At the time, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, Roopnarine Khadoo, had told Stabroek News that, government could not take over the project as there was no provision in the ministry's budget for such a venture. However, Cabinet had allocated some $2.5 million made possible by the Guyana Lottery Commission to ensure that the home stayed in operation to the end of last year. The ministry had detailed estimates for the home and funds were released on a piecemeal basis for the first half of this year to upkeep it until the national budget was passed and the takeover effected.
Temporarily closing down the operation to effect the changeover, Khadoo said was necessary to install a new management structure and to properly screen residents to occupy the half-way home.
Stabroek News was told that prior to the closing of the home there were residents there who did not meet the criteria. Those persons were homeless. On the other hand, however, a number of women had been helped. Some returned to their husbands, while others opted to go on their own with help from the home.
The home has accommodation for 20 women, kitchen and dining facilities, quarters for a caretaker and a plot of land for agricultural purposes, such as cash and permanent crops, artesian fishing and poultry rearing. (Miranda La Rose)