Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, Vi­jay Gan­gaper­sad, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with Rhon­dall Fee­les, the founder and pres­i­dent of the Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion, for us­ing his In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day march as a plat­form to crit­i­cise Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary said he at­tend­ed the march on be­half of the min­istry. He said in­stead of fo­cus­ing on the min­is­ter’s ab­sence, Fee­les should have spent time up­lift­ing men.

On Sun­day, Fee­les said he was dis­heart­ened that no gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial at­tend­ed the an­nu­al march, say­ing, “We love to fix men but we don’t like to help men.” 

How­ev­er, Web­ster-Roy said she in­formed Fee­les ahead of time that she was un­able to at­tend the event but she en­sured it was ful­ly spon­sored by Gov­ern­ment.

She said the ac­tivist was mak­ing her “feel bul­lied and ha­rassed.”

Fee­les re­spond­ed on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, say­ing, “The lies that have been told about me on a me­dia broad­cast last night will be ad­dressed with ev­i­dence af­ter the con­fer­ence. I hope good sense pre­vails and an apol­o­gy is is­sued be­fore.”

He didn’t spec­i­fy what the lies were. 

But Gan­gaper­sad said he at­tend­ed the march in his of­fi­cial ca­pac­i­ty as per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, rep­re­sent­ing the min­istry.

He al­so re­it­er­at­ed Web­ster-Roy’s ex­pla­na­tion that she was un­able to make the event be­cause of a pri­or com­mit­ment.  He not­ed the event was planned and ex­e­cut­ed in a very short space of time, with Cab­i­net ap­prov­ing and pro­vid­ing fund­ing. 

“I thought it was a bit un­fair not to recog­nise the ef­fort,” Gan­gaper­sad told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view.

“The whole pur­pose of the march was lost be­cause of where the fo­cus was on Mr Fee­les, that he didn’t see any min­is­ters there when it was the min­is­ters who were the ones who sup­port­ed (it) in Cab­i­net.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with the min­istry’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist, Sonya Ba­har­ry, who de­fend­ed the min­istry’s ini­tia­tives geared specif­i­cal­ly to­wards men. 

She ex­plained that, for this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day, the min­istry or­gan­ised a ful­ly gov­ern­ment-fund­ed mul­ti-day In­ter-Caribbean Re­gion­al Re­treat.

She al­so high­light­ed sev­er­al pro­grammes or­gan­ised to sup­port men, in­clud­ing Defin­ing Mas­cu­line Ex­cel­lence, the Bar­ber­shop Ini­tia­tive, and youth fo­rums. These ini­tia­tives, she said, have fo­cused on help­ing teenage boys, young men, and men in tough com­mu­ni­ties, cre­at­ing safe spaces where they can open­ly dis­cuss their chal­lenges.

Ba­har­ry al­so re­vealed plans for a Men’s Bu­reau aimed at pro­vid­ing on­go­ing sup­port for men. She said it will in­clude ac­cess to so­cial work­ers, med­ical ad­vice, and fo­rums where men can share their con­cerns and get help. She em­pha­sised that the min­istry is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing pro­grammes for every­one—men, boys, women, and girls—to en­sure equal­i­ty in na­tion­al poli­cies and sup­port.