Groundskeeping course set to start next month

Jakes Hotel’s owner Jason Henzell is hoping to improve the playing surfaces in Jamaica by offering qualified training in groundskeeping.

The Certificate in Groundskeeping course is being offered through the Breds Treasure Beach Foundation Skills Training Institute in St Elizabeth and HEART Trust who will be conducting the courses at the centre. The level two curriculum runs for nine months and is expected to start in March, with nine persons already registered to take part. The minimum amount of persons to start the programme is 16 and will cover training to develop and maintain field surfaces for different types of sports.

Henzell’s desire to train and developed qualified persons in the field stemmed from an encounter in 2004 when he approached the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) for funding for a playing field. The reasons given for the refusal of his request which included poor maintenance of previous fields after construction, were too great for him to ignore.

“Right there and right then I decided we would have to do something differently in how we approach grounds keeping in a more strategic and that we needed to build the capacity of people at the grass roots level,” he told The Gleaner

Changing perceptions

In addition to improving the state of fields in the country, Henzell is hoping to change the way the profession is perceived locally and to broaden the horizons and potential opportunities.

“We Jamaican people tend to look down on certain things including groundskeeping but the truth of the matter is that you can make a very good career out of groundskeeping.” he said.

Henzell’s mission is also to secure the future of Jamaica’s athletes, outlining that a quality playing surface to train and play will be crucial in their development and success on the world stage.

“I think all we need to do is to learn, be trained, get the expertise and share it among ourselves so that the standard will improve,” he said. “Because we cannot expect our athletes to perform at the highest level unless they have good surfaces, good fields to practice on.”

He hopes that the successful completion of the course will trigger similar training island wide, resulting in better quality fields across the island.

“I would love to see a few years from now fields across the country will look much better and that a lot of Jamaican’s will be certified and working both home and abroad in this field,” he said.