Improving parenting skills in Pakuri – 50 benefit
By Alleya Hamilton
DPI, Guyana, Tuesday, May 21, 2019
At least fifty households in the Indigenous village of Pakuri, formerly known as St. Cuthbert’s Mission, are set to benefit from a recent intervention by the Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) to improve parenting in the village.
The agency, on Friday to Sunday last, hosted a Parenting Skills Training Programme to educate and enlighten parents on ways of communicating with their children.
Since the beginning of the training, the volunteer team of highly skilled CPA social workers has been able to get parents to attend and interact with them, in hopes of finding solutions to their parental challenges.
“The training will help me in my parent style. It showed me how to treat my children good. I learnt how to talk to my children. [Especially in the] way to talk to them so that they could respect me and be disciplined,” said Ronika Clenkian, a parent who has been attending the training since its launch on Friday. The following day, Clenkian returned with her husband – the two share a one-year-old toddler. However, they each have three children from previous relationships.
“For me, I learned more to teach my children to grow in a proper manner. I am more enlightened in how to treat them and how to bring them closer to [to me as a parent] despite them being grown,” Clenkian’s husband – Shervin told Department of Public Information (DPI). His oldest child is sixteen years old.
Both agreed that the session on communicating healthily with their children has caused them to do some self-examination on their methods of discipline and interaction with the children.
In Pakuri, many of the mothers in the community are young teenage girls. After a report of an increase of teenage pregnancy occurring in the area, the CPA realised the urgency in reaching to the young mothers and fathers in the area.
Provina Dinels is a twenty-one-year-old mother of two children. She believes that the training has done a great deal for her in the aspect of communication and interaction with her four and one-year-old toddlers.
“The training was nice. I have learnt so many new things such as basically how I can grow-up my children in many new ways to be mannerly. Most parents, especially the young, just allow them to do whatever they want to do… [but we are learning] how to make our children become obedient and respectful to our elders and us.”
Pakuri is the only Indigenous village in Region 4, and it is a reserved area where the Toshao is always aware and sceptical about visitors or strangers entering.
Though the people have managed to achieve higher levels of community developments, they still do not have access to the technological advantages that others enjoy in the capital city – Georgetown. As a result, it is rare to find the inhabitants affixed to smartphones and computers.
Brianna Michael, a newly tailored social worker at the CPA, said she was motivated to embark on the training project in Pakuri because of the lack of information in the community.
“I think it’s essential for parents in St. Cuthbert’s to understand their children because today’s children are different from their generation. Some of the parents learnt parenting strategies from their ancestors who passed their methods to their children. Now, their children are connecting with things outside their community. They are exposed to some amount of technology which influences their actions. Therefore, educating parents on the steps they can take to be effective parents will help to address the needs of their children.”
Michael’s informative and interactive session on the topic, ‘Understanding Your Child’ was intended to encourage parents to evaluate their parenting style and, if need be, change their approaches.
Upon successful completion of the programme, fifty parents received certificates to serve as validation of the transformation in their parenting methods.
Images: Department of Public Information.