RISE trains children in consequences of underage gambling

This year, RISE celebrates 28 years of impact in Jamaica, designing and delivering services that cater to vulnerable populations across a wide range of thematic areas, including human rights, HIV/AIDS prevention and testing, capacity building, and substance abuse and addictive disorders rehabilitation.

The year 2018 has been very busy for us as we changed lives for the better. Take a look at some of the projects we implemented this year and the impact they had.

The EU-funded Finding My Voice programme is an exciting sexual-abuse prevention training and awareness programme for primary schools islandwide that uses music and games to deliver classroom sessions to more than 5,000 students. The programme also provided training for more than 1,000 parents and 35 teachers and guidance counsellors this year.

Additionally, a total of 3,000 youths in secondary schools islandwide have received human-rights education. Through this grant, RISE funded the Children First agency to implement WAKE, a gender-based violence project for battered women providing counselling and entrepreneurial training and support to move women out of abusive situations.

 

CAPACITY-BUILDING SUPPORT

 

The EU-funded Civil Society Boost Initiative (CSBI) is a capacity-building programme for Jamaican civil-society organisations (CSOs). Twenty-two CSOs benefited from capacity-building support through training and coaching in CSO management in proposal writing, project management, financial management, communications and public relations, social media, internal governance, monitoring and evaluation, and succession planning.

A total of $10 million was sub-granted through calls for proposals. The following three listed agencies were successful in receiving funding to implement projects in their communities: Deaf Can, Voices for Jamaica Today Foundation, Eve for Life.

A Capacity Building Manual for CSOs was developed, 'How to Set Up and Manage Your CSO for Success', which was created out of the capacity-building training programme. This manual will be made available to CSOs in Jamaica that wish to increase their operational capacity, as well as to anyone thinking of setting up a CSO in Jamaica.

RISE WISE Social Enterprise: Training for young people in the use of plastic and other waste to produce household items through a process of upcycling, and training of community-based organisations in advocacy in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme and Jamaica Environment Trust.

OAS-funded A New Path Programme: Promoting a healthy environment and productive alternatives for juvenile remandees and offenders in Jamaica. RISE trained 16 staff members of the island's juvenile-detention facilities to become life-skills facilitators, who are in turn conducting life skills-training in the following juvenile detention facilities: South Camp Detention Centre for Girls, Metcalfe Street Juvenile Detention Centre, Hilltop Juvenile Correctional Centre, and the Rio Cobre Juvenile Correctional Centre. Collectively, this project has impacted more than 120 juvenile offenders in Jamaica.

USAID FHI 360 Local Partner Development: RISE entered into a three-year agreement with the FHI 360 to implement a broad-based capacity-building programme for Jamaica's civil-society sector. Part of this programme will also focus on the building of RISE capacity and the implementation of capacity building for grassroots organisations, called Stepping Stones.

Global Fund/Ministry of Health HIV prevention, testing and access to care programme: Targeting the most vulnerable populations of men who have sex with men (MSM) and female sex workers (FSW). This year, 494 MSM were reached and received voluntary counselling and testing services, while 610 FSW were reached and received voluntary counselling and testing services.

 

Programme for gambling

 

RISE operates the only comprehensive programme for individuals with gambling-related problems in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean. The significant components of the project are gambling prevention education for youth in schools, responsible gaming training for gaming lounge staff, treatment services for those afflicted with a gambling disorder, and a voluntary self-exclusion programme that allows persons to ban themselves from entering gaming lounges islandwide.

This year, we trained 14,600 children in primary schools in the consequences of underage gambling, 250 guidance counsellors and peer educators in underage gambling-prevention skills, and 400 staff members in gaming lounges across Jamaica in responsible gaming principles. This project is funded by the Betting Gaming & Lotteries Commission.

Children are sent by the Drug Court to RISE on a daily basis for marijuana use. RISE provides drug-testing and counselling services, as well as a Saturday programme for this population. Children who are referred by the court attend the intervention until they have provided consecutive clean tests for marijuana use. This project is funded by the CHASE Fund.

RISE operates an Employee Assistance Programme for companies. We currently have a contract to provide counselling services, including for trauma and grief, for more than 5,000 employees at Sutherland Global.

The toll-free telephone lifeline (888-991-4146) continues to offer telephone counselling and referrals 24 hours per day for all forms of addiction.

RISE wishes to thank its many donors this year. Apart from the donor agencies that have funded projects, we have received invaluable financial support for projects from the following agencies: The National Health Fund, Seprod Foundation, New Fortress Energy Ltd, and CAC Air Conditioning and Energy Solutions.