Mem­bers of the Glen Road com­mu­ni­ty in To­ba­go can now boast of a mod­ern air-con­di­tioned com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. The $1.9 mil­lion cen­tre was of­fi­cial­ly opened re­cent­ly at a func­tion at­tend­ed by scores of vil­lagers. It was the first of five projects to be de­liv­ered to the peo­ple of To­ba­go this month. The oth­er projects are the Pa­tience Hill Hard Court, the re­fur­bished Louis D'Or Recre­ation Ground, Belle Gar­den Recre­ation­al Fa­cil­i­ties and Les Coteaux Ear­ly Child­hood Care Cen­tre.

In de­liv­er­ing re­marks at the func­tion, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties were at the heart of stronger com­mu­ni­ties and it was for this rea­son her Di­vi­sion con­tin­ued to pro­vide so­cial in­fra­struc­ture and a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment in the de­vel­op­ment of To­bag­o­ni­ans. "Com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment is al­so im­por­tant as we work to­wards build­ing stronger com­mu­ni­ties...we will build the fa­cil­i­ties, we will cre­ate the pro­grammes, but the rest is up to you to utilise the fa­cil­i­ties and the pro­gramme for your de­vel­op­ment," she told the vil­lagers.

She said there were now 33 com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres in To­ba­go and in fis­cal 2011, while the As­sem­bly was able to re­ceive on­ly $6 mil­lion from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment for con­struc­tion of com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, it was able to ac­cess ap­prox­i­mate­ly $23 mil­lion from the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil to com­plete con­struc­tion of the Par­latu­vi­er and John Di­al Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tres and to start con­struc­tion of the Spey­side, Bet­sy's Hope, Low­lands and Bethes­da cen­tres.

David­son-Ce­les­tine not­ed that the old cen­tre at Glen Road was in a de­plorable con­di­tion and not up to stan­dard, and as re­sult of rep­re­sen­ta­tions made by the two area rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sec­re­tary of Health and So­cial Ser­vices Clau­dia Groome-Duke and Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, a new wing was con­struct­ed at a cost of $1.9 mil­lion to en­com­pass the old struc­ture.