Women of Belize Police Lead Community Service Projects for Women’s Month

Women officers from the police department’s Eastern Division were carrying out community service projects in various locations today. The works formed a part of the department’s activities for Women’s Month. In San Pedro, officers were beautifying Flamboyant Park on Coco Plum Street. In Caye Caulker they were removing sargassum from the beach. In Belize City activities ranged from enhancing the playground on Armadillo Street and cleaning up Neal’s Penn Rd Extension Basketball Court, to assisting senior citizens by cleaning their yard. Commissioner of Police Chester Willaims applauded the efforts and said that he has ensured that women officers are well represented at every echelon within the department.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “Our department pride ourselves for ensuring that we look after the women who work with us. Women in law enforcement can be traced all the way back to 1963 when the first women police officers were recruited. From then to now we have progressed tremendously where at this current time we have just under 600 women police officers and we have women police officers at every rank in the department except the commissioner’s rank. That goes to show again that we are not a department as sees ourselves as a man’s job or a man’s department but rather one that is diverse and we tried to promote people based on their skills and their job knowledge as opposed to their gender. So I am happy for the strides that we have made. Under my tenure as commissioner I have ensured that every head station across the country has a woman either as the OC or a deputy and again that goes to show that we ensure that there is a representation of women at every head station across the country and that goes a very long way in terms of boosting the moral of women. I can also say that we have never had so many women promoted in the department like we have now under my command. We have promoted a number of women to different ranks and so we do these things again not just because these are women but simply because they brought good things to the table, they brought skill sets, they brought job knowledge to the table and these are things we need in order for us to be able to progress and serve the country they way we should as a department.” 

The department’s Prosecution Branch also participated in the activities, distributing warm meals to the homeless.