Kali­fa Clyne

The Min­istry of Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion is in­tent on ed­u­cat­ing the peo­ple of T&T on its his­to­ry through the restora­tion and pro­mo­tion of her­itage sites.Di­ver­si­ty Min­is­ter Clifton De Coteau re­vealed the first phase of the restora­tion and re­fur­bish­ment of Fort San An­dres dur­ing a project-com­mence­ment cer­e­mo­ny at the South Quay, Port-of-Spain, site. The project in­cludes the restora­tion of the mu­se­um of the City of Port-of-Spain.

De Coteau de­scribed the fort as the his­tor­i­cal gate­way to the city and said over 65,000 Africans and 30,000 East In­di­ans en­tered Trinidad through its doors."It is sad to­day that many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans pass here and do not know its his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance," he said.De Coteau said the first phase of the restora­tion, which be­gan last week, would in­clude roof­ing and gut­ter­ing, foun­da­tion and floors, elec­tri­cal and light­ing and plumb­ing and sew­er­age.

A tour of the build­ing re­vealed rooms filled with pieces of Port-of-Spain and Trinidad's his­to­ry, such as pic­tures of leg­endary band­leader George Bai­ley and Car­ni­val char­ac­ters, an ar­chae­ol­o­gy room and a his­to­ry room.The tour al­so re­vealed rot­ted floor boards, rust­ed rail­ings and win­dows in a state of dis­re­pair.

Project man­ag­er Michael Ram­sook said the project would take two months to com­plete.De Coteau said the min­istry had been vis­it­ing sites around T&T to as­sess their in­fra­struc­tur­al re­quire­ments and al­low for in­creased pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness of their con­tri­bu­tion to the his­to­ry, cul­ture and her­itage of T&T.