There are two im­por­tant lessons to be learnt from the shut­down of the Di­a­mond Vale Car­ni­val Break­fast par­ty this year.The first is that peo­ple have pow­er which they can use col­lec­tive­ly and re­spon­si­bly to pro­tect their in­ter­ests. Sec­ond, that there is need for com­mu­ni­ty mech­a­nisms for re­solv­ing the dif­fer­ences and seek­ing and find­ing so­lu­tions to the is­sues which will arise from time to time.

One of the most im­por­tant as­pects of be­ing in­de­pen­dent is how we gov­ern our­selves. For too long when faced with sit­u­a­tions like the Break­fast Par­ty nui­sance, and it was re­al­ly get­ting worse, many felt there was noth­ing we could do. Last car­ni­val I took half an hour to get from the Coop to Tiara Boule­vard, on­ly to meet a fight be­tween a woman and a man, while her friends blocked the road with their car rather than put her in the car and take her away.

While I ad­mire the courage and tenac­i­ty of the main ob­jec­tors, I do not be­lieve that the courts are the ap­pro­pri­ate place for these mat­ters to be re­solved, es­pe­cial­ly as we saw in this case the fete or­gan­is­ers could af­ford, from the tick­et sales, to hire a fan­cy lawyer and the res­i­dent pro­test­ers could not.

As one of the orig­i­nal Di­a­mond Vale prop­er­ty own­ers (I moved in 1964), I know and val­ue what we as re­spon­si­ble res­i­dents did to build one of the best, safest and well-ser­viced com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad. We start­ed by form­ing our­selves in to a Di­a­mond Vale Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion, which col­lab­o­rat­ed and fought for the many ser­vices which we now en­joy and which many take for grant­ed.

We now have street­lights, traf­fic lights, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, church­es, a po­lice sta­tion, 24/7 wa­ter, reg­u­lar house­hold and yard garbage col­lec­tion, re­cy­cling col­lec­tion, postal ser­vices, news­pa­per, fruit and veg­etable stands, ac­cess to gas sta­tions, hard­ware stores, ATM, phar­ma­cy. We have a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, recre­ation fa­cil­i­ties in­clud­ing a swim­ming pool.

The res­i­dents put down the ten­nis court be­fore the state con­tin­ued the de­vel­op­ment of the sports fa­cil­i­ties on Di­a­mond Boule­vard. When I leave my house for a 20-minute walk in the morn­ing, I go past three parks. I know of no oth­er res­i­den­tial area so well served.

Be­sides the phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture I al­so know and val­ue the so­cial in­fra­struc­ture we de­vel­oped. The Diego Mar­tin Con­sumer Coop which we formed, has served our com­mu­ni­ty for 40 years and is, with our 1,500 mem­bers, about to have new lease on life. Our chil­dren who were born and grew up in Di­a­mond Vale con­tin­ue to en­joy strong and valu­able friend­ships.

This is clear­ly the time for us to re­new the Di­a­mond Vale Res­i­dents As­so­ci­a­tion. We need to re-en­gage with each oth­er in mean­ing­ful and re­spect­ful di­a­logue, to deal with the many oth­er chal­lenges that we face. As im­por­tant as the prop­er­ty val­ues is a her­itage of a strong vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty we can leave our grand chil­dren.

Unit­ed we stand al­ways

Hazel Brown,

Di­a­mond Vale