Govt working with stakeholders to address issues facing migrants

The Government of Guyana is partnering with several stakeholders to ensure that migrants receive the support deemed necessary.
This has been disclosed by Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton, who on Thursday pledged that that would continue to be the case when he met with representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) IOM/ILO. He was accompanied at that meeting by Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the Board of Industrial Training (BIT), Natecia Garraway.
According to a social media post, the focus of that meeting was particularly on addressing migration-related issues that affect the Venezuelan migrant population in this country; training and development; health and safety opportunities; and on being educated on the country’s Labour laws.

The visiting delegation included Special Advisor to the IOM, Juan Francisco Espinosa; Regional Labour Mobility and Social Inclusion Coordinator IOM-UN, Maria-Alexandra Bassermann; Deputy Regional Coordination Officer for the Caribbean and Chief of Mission for Guyana, Eraina Yaw; and other officials.
Before that meeting had concluded, Hamilton had pledged his support – and, by extension, that of the Government of Guyana — to partner with both the IOM and the UN to address matters discussed in a meaningful way.
In Guyana, all children of migrants from Venezuela and other countries, whether legal or illegal, are allowed to fully access the public school system within their host communities, and to benefit from Government-funded support programmes, including school feeding programmes, school uniform vouchers, and the “Because We Care” cash grants given to all students.
Reports indicate that there are about 40,000 Venezuelan migrants presently residing across various administrative regions of Guyana, and only about 21,704 of them are officially documented.