Kemar Saffrey, Trustee of the Barbados National NGO Network, as he spoke at the launch.
The Barbados National NGO Network has been launched, to ensure that local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have an umbrella body that can represent them and so they can network for improved sustainability and service delivery.
The launch of the National NGO Network (NNN) took place yesterday at the headquarters of the Barbados Vagrants & Homeless Society and NNN trustee, Kemar Saffrey, noted that the organisation is seeking to bring together NGOs from all over the island, to act as their voice, as they network. He pointed out that the formation of a National NGO Network will aim at shifting local organisations from only focusing on their own goals, allowing them the opportunity to communicate, coordinate and cooperate with other NGOs with similar scopes of work, so that they can all be in a better position to attract the support of international organisations and not solely rely on government for funding and other types of assistance.
“Many times, when we look at the NGO sector, it is not really recognised, because we are all singly doing what we do on a day-to-day basis, without networking, without collaborating, without formalising or coming together to make a stronger body to be able to go forward and press government or press various sectors, when it comes to NGOs,” Saffrey stated.
“We know from research, that the NGO sector is a very powerful sector. It is characterised as the third most powerful sector after government and the private sector and we find that in Barbados, a lot of the NGOs are not utilising the power and the strength that they have, when it comes to getting things done,” he added.
“We believe as a sector, that we have not been heard enough and one of the important things, is that we thought that we should be involved a lot more in government’s decisions, because we are the ones on the ground. We should be involved in the Social Partnership committee. We should be involved in most of the committees that the government is putting out. We should also have someone from the NGO committee be and independent senator in the Senate, so that when the government is making policies or legislation, that they can have an input from somebody that can be a vocal person on behalf of the NGO committee,” Saffrey continued.
Stressing that the NGO community often hears the cries of Barbadians as they operate “on the ground”, and that NGO organisations are often armed with critical statistics that could assist in governmental decision making, Saffrey suggested that with the launch of the NNN, which has been in the works since 2015, the network will better be able to advocate for its members as a whole, whilst still achieving individual goals. (RSM)