Norwood residents get $7.8m in business grants under ZOSO
Published:Tuesday | February 15, 2022 | 12:08 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
ROUGHLY EIGHT months since a zone of special operations (ZOSO) was declared in their community, residents of Norwood in St James have benefited from an investment of $7.8 million under the micro-enterprise programme.
According to Omar Sweeney, managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), who is also deputy chairman of the ZOSO social intervention committee, his team is actively working with the residents to advance their lives and helping young people to establish small businesses or to improve and expand what they already have.
He said the social intervention committee is looking at micro-enterprise grants for youth who are trying to earn and make a living.
“Since January, we have identified and awarded grants to 30 beneficiaries, valued at $7.8 million,” Sweeney told The Gleaner.
Last June, a ZOSO was declared in Norwood, a stronghold of key criminal gangsters whose reign the security forces have been seeking to end with a security blanket and social intervention strategies. It came after gun violence claimed 15 lives in 14 shootings in the one-square-kilometre community, within the first six months of 2021.
Sweeney noted 35 members of the community are now working as environment wardens for a six-month period in partnership with the National Solid Waste Management Authority, which got under way in January.
Further, he said that the ZOSO has been yielding good results in terms of crime reduction, but the long-term plan is to engage the youth and get them attached to meaningful activities.
The JSIF boss noted that work is also being done with the National Water Commission (NWC) to regularise the distribution and metering of potable water in the Norwood space. Funding for the water distribution system will be earmarked in the next Budget.
“We are working with the NWC to deal with the regularisation and completion for some of the water and sewerage infrastructure systems,” Sweeney informed.
Dalton Spence, president of the Norwood Community Development Committee (CDC), said the ZOSO’s social intervention initiative is providing hope for residents.
“The ZOSO is good for Norwood. It came at a good time and quit the guns,” Spence told The Gleaner, noting the drastic reduction in gun crimes in the space since. “It has saved many lives. Many people would have been killed at this point if it weren’t for the ZOSO.”
He said the initiative has changed many lives, especially in the areas where shootings and killings were taking place.
“People are now able to walk freely on the streets again,” he shared.
Spence stated that, under the social intervention arm, approximately 50 students who are now in high schools were hosted by the JSIF in a transition seminar and provided with positive guidance from the St James police.
As for the micro-enterprise programme, Spence said it is a welcome investment.
“About 30 persons would have gained from this because quite a lot of dressmakers, carpenters, furniture makers benefited by way of equipment and tools. And those who operate chicken farms, shopkeepers and small restaurant operators benefited.”
According to the Norwood CDC president, five years would be an appropriate timeline to have the ZOSO in the community for a total transformation. He said the work of the environmental wardens is also paying off and residents are happy to see them in the space.
“Most of them go beyond the surface to make sure that the area is well kept. They are also making a difference because they provide information to residents on how to properly dispose of their waste,” said Spence.
Poultry farmer Ishiana Billings is among the beneficiaries of a financial grant from the micro-enterprise programme.
She said it has helped to advance her chicken and ground-provision farming business.
“Just before the ZOSO, I had some spoilage and I was planning on getting a refrigerator. So when this thing came up, I knew exactly what I wanted,” said Billings, who received a deep freezer and an automatic chicken water supply worth more than $300,000, along with a hydroponic farm system.