Glendevon Market to be transformed

Barrington Flemming, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

A centre of excellence to serve Glendevon and its environs will become a reality by December, six years after member of parliament for North West St James, Dr Horace Chang, mooted the facility to empower unattached youths.

"This project has been long in the making (facing) lots of struggles. But it was formulated to capture those at-risk youths, especially the males," Chang said.

"Our aim is to reconnect with young men who have dropped out of school. In urban Montego Bay, there is a 70 per cent dropout rate. We want to re-engage and get them back into the productive sector."

The Caribbean Development Bank, through the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), is providing $34 million to rehabilitate the old Glendevon Market. The facility has been in a state of disrepair since it was damaged during the passage of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

The market building will undergo a multimillion-dollar rehabilitation that will transform the building into the Glendevon trade training centre.

A contract has been signed with Share Con Limited, headed by Clive Sterling, to implement the project, which will be completed over four months. Work is expected to begin within another two weeks.

JSIF technical officer Huntley Austin cited that while there was much to be done, the work would be completed on time and within budget.

"The day-care centre (next door) will be renovated, the roof covering will be replaced, as well as doors and windows, plumbing and electrical works are to be effected, fencing of the property, construction of the computer laboratory and renovation of the training."

The centre will accommodate up to 200 individuals, and subjects on offer will include property management, landscaping, building maintenance, information technology, small appliances repairing, waiting and bartending.

"These will be geared mainly at young men, but we will also have a course in childcare, as there is still a large number of young mothers and high-school dropouts," Chang said. "The childcare unit will be used as part of the training, as well as to provide care for their children while they learn."

The Very Reverend Justin Nembhard, priest at the St Francis Anglican Church in Glendevon for more than 25 years, welcomes the move.

"The community is desperately in need of a training facility and, with the proposed undertaking at the old Market to provide such a facility, one has to applaud that move and hope that it will lead to helping a number of young men and women and unattached youth with a position of skill for the job market."

Nembhard says he is offering the church's trade-training centre to be included in the vocational training component to be offered at the new centre.

"The church, in collaboration with HEART Trust/NTA, commenced a training operation in the Glendevon community many years ago, which provided opportunity for the acquisition of skills in the areas of woodwork, carpentry, garment construction, masonry, and steel fixing," he explained.

"For many years, the facility served the interests of many young persons who were able to obtain jobs at the nearby garment factory at the time, and at construction sites in and around Montego Bay. Unfortunately, that centre was closed and much attempt was made to reopen it. So I am offering this space to be utilised to broaden the scope of that centre."

Chang, who is also the water and housing minister, said the former Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Glendevon has also been acquired, and will be transformed into a satellite remedial training centre to provide literacy and numeracy skills to equip the participants for inclusion in the vocational-training component.

He said that similar satellite centres would also be implemented in Flankers, downtown Montego Bay, Rose Heights and Granville, by September.