Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

The Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma, was the cen­tre of colour and ca­ma­raderie, as res­i­dents through­out the com­mu­ni­ty and neigh­bour­ing ar­eas unit­ed for their in­au­gur­al Sports Day, on East­er Sun­day.

The event, which was or­gan­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ari­ma Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice Unit, was aimed at fos­ter­ing clos­er com­mu­ni­ty ties, while of­fer­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty for chil­dren in the area to show­case their ath­leti­cism and skills in var­i­ous sport­ing cat­e­gories.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the event, PC Dex­ter Par­sons, who is as­signed to the unit, said he was pleased with the turnout and the lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion among res­i­dents in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the event.

Par­sons not­ed that while res­i­dents were orig­i­nal­ly hes­i­tant and scep­ti­cal of po­lice of­fi­cers who ar­rived in the com­mu­ni­ty, he was con­fi­dent that ef­forts to gain their trust and re­store hope in the TTPS were suc­cess­ful.

“For the past six months, we start­ed a few ini­tia­tives where we part­ner with oth­er agen­cies and min­istries to make a pos­i­tive im­pact among res­i­dents.

“This is the first of it’s kind in 11 years, here was plagued with a lot of crime and vi­o­lence and peo­ple now feel safe enough to come out and have a good time, thanks to the in­ter­ven­tion of the po­lice.

“The res­i­dents gave their sup­port, clean­ing the streets for the events and so on. So this is the com­mu­ni­ty help­ing the com­mu­ni­ty with as­sis­tance from the com­mu­ni­ty po­lice.”

Par­sons said such events were crit­i­cal in restor­ing trust and se­cur­ing part­ner­ship, as it demon­strat­ed the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to help res­i­dents at every lev­el out­side of crime pre­ven­tion and de­tec­tion.

“The com­mu­ni­ty must not see the po­lice on­ly when there’s time for a raid or a road­block. They must see us in their sport­ing events, the schools, the Church­es, the neigh­bour­hood watch group meet­ings.

“Com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing doesn’t hap­pen in the (po­lice) sta­tion, it hap­pens in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

One res­i­dent, who asked not to be named, told Guardian Me­dia that she was par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py with the will­ing­ness of the po­lice to stage an event in the neigh­bour­hood.

Re­fer­ring to her daugh­ter, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the march past, the woman said the spec­ta­cle gave chil­dren some­thing to look for­ward to.

“With­out events like these, a lot of these chil­dren fall in­to idle­ness, and it’s been a long time since any of us (res­i­dents) see some­body take in­ter­est in our neigh­bour­hood.

“We want it to con­tin­ue, be­cause we are peo­ple too, and we have chil­dren who want to be a part of these things too.”

The events be­gan with a 5K race ear­ly on Sun­day morn­ing, with var­i­ous oth­er sport­ing events where par­tic­i­pants of all ages had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to win prizes and give­aways.