The cost of daycare facilities for children in Guyana continue to rise as parents, especially those who are employed by Government, are also finding it difficult to juggle between their workplaces and daycare centres.
In this light, Ruth Howard, who represents women’s organsiations/groups at the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), while speaking about the roles that women play, explained that traditionally, women have been seen as nurturers at home but now with their presence in the workforce, this proves to be quite a challenging.
She stated that there is a need for more work places to offer day care services to women as part of ensuring that they can function effectively as a staff member and also as a parent. Such a move would be a “win-win situation” for all parties.
According to Howard, this suggestion should be considered by the government since it would be beneficial to both the employees and employers.
In addition, there are men who are single parents that would benefit from such an option too.
Ideally, such a move would be welcomed by the larger society since it would be cost effective to families and also would negate situations where employers have to give time off to their workers so that they could care for their children properly.
This idea had been voiced on the campaign trail during the elections held in 2015 but to date it is yet to come to fruition.
