Rossana Briceño Leverages Special Envoy Role and Spouse of CARICOM Leader to Advocate for regional women and children
Rossana Briceño
The organization, Spouses of CARICOM Leaders Action Network, or S-CLAN, met recently to talk about issues affecting women, adolescents and children in the region. The CARICOM/United Nations initiative engages in projects that focus on H.I.V./AIDS, cervical cancer, gender-based violence, mental health and other challenges. Rossana Briceño, the wife of Prime Minister John Briceño, is among the eleven-member executive. She shared with News Five that while the resources are few, her title as Special Envoy allows her the opportunity to work under the Prime Minister’s office and closely with a number of the government ministries towards the same cause.
Rossana Briceño, Special Envoy for Women & Children
“It’s not just Human Development, it’s about five other ministries that can work collaboratively with this office. This office, Marion, is about advocacy. We don’t provide services, we nuh have money fi goh build no school; we can advocate and we can partner to send in proposals to funding agencies and we can lobby for that. In this office we can do that, but my office itself, we can’t just raise – we won’t get any money unless there’s a project. Of course, one of the biggest focus areas for me is going to be based on my interest. I know education. That’s all I’ve done for umpteen years. I’m going to see how this office – I can use that as a platform to work in the other areas, including special education. That’s a big priority. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in special ed – advocacy, awareness, training; training, training, training comes up in everything. There’s HIV/AIDS, there’s teenage pregnancy, then there’s gender-based violence. Then there’s the elderly – caring for our elderly. Of course, the overall (goal) is for the development of families and children. So my proposal to the secretariat for S-Clan was to see how my office can work collaboratively in these areas, so we’re not duplicating efforts. Policies, the reform – the legislative reforms that need to be put in place. Now I’m not a lawyer and I nuh claim to be – have that know-how – but we have people that are working on these things and if I can continue to advocate for these things to actually become reality, I will be very happy.”
Mrs. Briceño says the initiative is now looking to include men’s issues in the discussions and projects the group carries out.
