To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) can­di­date for To­ba­go West Joel Mar­cus Samp­son says if elect­ed to Par­lia­ment, he will con­tin­ue the work he start­ed un­der the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly—es­pe­cial­ly in youth de­vel­op­ment, sports, and com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Mont­gomery last night, Samp­son list­ed sev­er­al pro­grammes he helped im­ple­ment over the past year as sec­re­tary of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, youth de­vel­op­ment and sport.

“In just un­der one year, some of the things I have done … fi­nan­cial sup­port, I have al­lo­cat­ed fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to sev­en faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions … we have rolled out the Pro Youth ini­tia­tive … we have pro­vid­ed 154 young per­sons be­tween the ages of 16 to 18 with com­pre­hen­sive work ex­pe­ri­ences,” he said.

Samp­son said the di­vi­sion al­so in­tro­duced GPS track­ing for ve­hi­cles, vo­ca­tion­al skills train­ing for in­mates, and in­tern­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties for CSEC and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents. He added that 580 CEPEP work­ers were trained in per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment and oth­er safe­ty ar­eas.

“We have ren­o­vat­ed and up­grad­ed both the L’Anse Four­mi and Glam­or­gan Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tres … we have start­ed re­pair and up­grade works to the Ply­mouth Pavil­ion… and mo­bilised con­trac­tors for the light­ing of the low­lands play­ing fa­cil­i­ty,” he added.

Samp­son promised to do more if elect­ed, say­ing: “This job is ex­haust­ing, but I do it be­cause you de­serve bet­ter.” —Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les