THE BARBADOS GOVERNMENT and the Chinese Embassy are teaming up to bring four new multipurpose community centres to the island.
Minister of Community Development Steve Blackett said the centres, earmarked for Silver Hill and Kingsland in Christ Church, Clapham in St Michael, and Rock Hall in St Thomas, will cater to the communities they will be a part of in many ways.
Member of Parliament for Christ Church West, Stephen Lashley, was present for the first stop at Silver Hill, on the site of the old Banco Building. He outlined what the upcoming centre would feature.
“Upon completion, it will house a facility for not only recreation but to allow the community to engage in community-development activities. It is proposed to have a recreational area, at least three shop areas, changing rooms, an open layout upstairs for community groups to use for their various activities, and office space for [the] constituency council and welfare department,” he said.
Lashley said such centres would help to facilitate youths’ increasing interest in cultural activities.
“This facility will also be very critical to accomplishing many of our goals set out in the national Youth Policy, where young people can be engaged right at their doorsteps.
“We are seeing an increased interest in cultural activity; we are very keen on developing more community groups and are poised to establish at least three new broad-based community groups akin to the Pinelands Creative Workshop – one in the South, one in the North and one will cater to the other districts – with the intention to not only develop the kind of systems for people to be innovators but to attach to that a commercial section so people can get involved in commerce and create entrepreneurship at the community level,” he said.
While plans had been drawn up for the Silver Hill and Kingsland areas, no figures or even a start date had been arrived at as yet, Blackett said.
The Kingsland centre will be placed on the Lodge Road playing field to replace the destroyed Lodge Road Sports Club. Blackett said it would also cater to the sporting needs of the community as well as house a branch of the community development department and constituency empowerment department.
