Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced a $100 mil­lion plan to em­pow­er em­bat­tled com­mu­ni­ties against crim­i­nals, two com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers are call­ing for prop­er con­sul­ta­tion to guide any de­ci­sions made.

Dur­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment pub­lic meet­ing in San Juan last Thurs­day, the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced that $100 mil­lion will be made avail­able to the T&T De­fence Force to as­sist in fight­ing crime from a so­cial stand­point in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties.

Ref­er­enc­ing ear­li­er re­marks from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, who spoke about a re­cent in­ci­dent where a crim­i­nal was op­posed to the in­stal­la­tion of street lights in a par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty, Dr Row­ley said such sit­u­a­tions were com­mon in some neigh­bour­hoods, but vowed a strong re­sponse through the pro­gramme.

Dur­ing his ad­dress, Row­ley said the com­mu­ni­ties that will be tar­get­ed dur­ing the ex­er­cise will be list­ed some­time soon.

The an­nounce­ment drew crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal, who ac­cused Dr Row­ley of set­ting up the pro­gramme to fund gang­sters in at-risk neigh­bour­hoods.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at his of­fice yes­ter­day, life­long Mor­vant res­i­dent and busi­ness­man David Hart­man said he was op­ti­mistic that the plan could suc­ceed once the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to meet and lis­ten to the needs of res­i­dents.

Last Tues­day night, three men, Is­rael McLaren, 19, Shaq­keem Den­nis, 27, and Jam­mol Williams, were gunned down while lim­ing un­der a tent out­side Build­ing D at Par­adise Heights, Mor­vant. The trio were killed by gun­men dressed in po­lice tac­ti­cal gear.

Hart­man, the founder of the Hart­man Group of Com­pa­nies, which in­cludes a trans­porta­tion and car wash ser­vice, said hav­ing the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port any com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ven­tion was nec­es­sary.

Re­fer­ring to a near­by play park on Ja­cobin Street that was in need of up­grade, Hart­man sug­gest­ed the con­struc­tion of an in­door mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ty that would ac­com­mo­date youths through men­tor­ship pro­grammes and an area for small busi­ness­es to safe­ly ply their trade.

“For most youths in Mor­vant, the on­ly thing left to do is to come out­side and sit down on the block af­ter school or if they are un­em­ployed. So most times, you’ll see a lot of young peo­ple loi­ter­ing,” Hart­man told Guardian Me­dia.

“A mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ty where you can of­fer some­thing to every­one, there can even be a food court. Give us some­thing else to do be­cause right now in Mor­vant, there isn’t any­thing else to do. Be­cause of that, you’re go­ing to find a lot of youths loi­ter­ing, that loi­ter­ing leads to ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour, which in turn leads to the prob­lems.”

He added that Mor­vant res­i­dents were pre­pared and will­ing to meet with Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss ideas on what the com­mu­ni­ty need­ed most, as most peo­ple, in­clud­ing him­self, were con­cerned about crime is­sues.

Hart­man added that res­i­dents un­der­stood the unique chal­lenges and de­tails of their com­mu­ni­ty, and were best ca­pa­ble of of­fer­ing ad­vice on any crime-fight­ing plans that would af­fect them.

“Peo­ple are fed-up, so they will try any­thing to as­sist.

“It’s just get­ting worse and worse as the days go by, there are two mur­ders or three mur­ders and news about home in­va­sions.

“As busi­ness­peo­ple, we are afraid for our work­ers and even for our­selves but we pray and ask God for pro­tec­tion.”

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, founder of the En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas-based Ryu Dan Do­jo and Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre, sen­sei Mar­va John-Lo­gan, said while she was al­so op­ti­mistic of the Gov­ern­ment’s plan, she agreed that no long-term changes could be achieved with­out the in­volve­ment of res­i­dents.

John-Lo­gan, who has been ac­tive­ly in­volved in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ven­tions us­ing mar­tial arts, has al­so worked close­ly with the US Em­bassy in T&T and the po­lice in em­pow­er­ing youths in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas.

She said while up­grad­ed in­fra­struc­ture is need­ed, un­der­stand­ing the chal­lenges and needs of the res­i­dents was crit­i­cal.

“Every com­mu­ni­ty has a spe­cif­ic need, don’t use a one-size-fits-all ap­proach to our prob­lems. Come in and see our needs,” she said.

“Crime re­quires a con­sis­tent, on­go­ing process and we have to at­tack crime like a busi­ness.”

John-Lo­gan sug­gest­ed that a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach deal­ing with crime at all age groups would be ben­e­fi­cial, but said the first step could on­ly be made by meet­ing and hear­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of long-time res­i­dents.

She al­so urged the Gov­ern­ment to not start new ini­tia­tives from scratch, but rather pro­vide more fund­ing and re­sources to ex­ist­ing pro­grammes which have yield­ed re­sults.