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On Thursday, January 9, a team
from the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) met with the
new Minister of Social Cohesion, Honourable Dr. George Norton, M.P. and his
Technical Officer, Pamela Nauth, at his Ministry of the Presidency office.
SASOD’s Managing Director, Joel
Simpson, Social Change Coordinator, Jairo Rodrigues and Advocacy and
Communications Officer, Schemel Patrick attended the meeting to discuss their
partnership with the Ministry of Social Cohesion and the Ministry’s public
education work which is pivotal in the prevention of violence and
discrimination and is at the heart of SASOD’s work with sexual and gender
minorities.
Opening the meeting, Simpson
outlined SASOD’s approach to social cohesion. He discussed a combination
approach which give a “sandwich effect” to achieve social cohesion. Simpson described the top-down approach which
includes law and policy reform, especially constitutional reform to protect
minority groups from discrimination. He stated that constitutional reform is
paramount to sanction discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender
identity. He then described the bottom-up approach which engages communities
and educates citizens to curtail their prejudices. “SASOD believes that both
approaches need to be taken together to achieve social cohesion in Guyana,”
Simpson said.
