President Faure visits tourism, family affairs ministries |16 June 2018

Employees of the tourism and family affairs ministries at the Botanical House and Unity House had the opportunity to briefly meet with President Danny Faure yesterday morning to enlighten him on the work they do and share the concerns and challenges they face while performing their duties.

President Faure’s visit yesterday was part of his routine visits to work places to interact with employees and see for himself their working environment and discuss with their management different ways to improve their working environment and conditions, boost productivity and explore ways to do and make things better in the work places.

Tourism Minister Didier Dogley and Family Affairs Minister Mitcy Larue and key officials from both ministries led President Faure on a tour of the different departments, units and sections in their respective ministry where he interacted with employees.

President Faure congratulated the employees for their hard work and devotion and urged them to remain committed in spite of all the challenges and moments of discouragement.

While the tourism ministry’s secretariat and all its departments and employees are based at the Botanical House, for the Ministry of Family Affairs only its secretariat is based there. The majority of employees of both the department of social affairs, 80 of them, and that of family affairs, 11, are based at Unity House.

At the end of his visit at the Botanical House which ended with a meeting with the management of the tourism ministry, President Faure proceeded to Unity House to meet the rest of the employees of the family affairs ministry scattered on different floors of the building.

Speaking to the press following the management meeting there, principal secretary for family affairs, Marie-Josée Bonne said it was an opportunity to highlight the constraints they have in carrying out their work, such as a lack of financial and human resources to produce awareness and educational programmes. The family affairs department focuses mainly on research and surveys to help in the drafting of policies relating to population and family. Nevertheless, she noted that a lot of work has been achieved by the department which only recently became part of the newly-formed Ministry of Family Affairs.

For her part, the principal secretary for social affairs department Linda William Melanie said the staff have welcomed the short interaction with the president. 

She noted that the meeting with the management was an opportunity to enlighten President Faure on the different concerns employees have when addressing the social challenges certain families are facing, namely children who lack respect, discipline and social control.

PS Melanie noted that social workers’ duties involve a lot of case work which include counseling and parenting education with families.

“Their work involve a lot of different components to try and get interpersonal relationship between the different parties to be functional,” noted Ms William Melanie, adding that all this take time and people often do not understand and believe social workers have all the quick solutions for their problems when in fact the solutions lie with them but it takes time and a lot of commitment and patience to make them understand.

PS Melanie said they also brought to the attention of President Faure the insufficiency in resources, shortcomings in support services as her department relies on other agencies or ministries to provide information in relation to children and families. She noted that these are not always readily available when required.

The need for the salary scheme of social workers to be reviewed was also put on the table especially in the face of increasing difficulties social workers face when performing their duties among other challenges and difficulties discussed.

The accompanying photos show President Faure during the visits.