An­na-Lisa Paul

Res­i­dents of Dun­can and Nel­son Streets, Port-of-Spain, who had pre­vi­ous­ly been war­ring in gang vi­o­lence were yes­ter­day as­sured of a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing, im­proved hous­ing con­di­tions and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties as the Gov­ern­ment em­barks on a bold ini­tia­tive to deal head on with the crime sit­u­a­tion. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Jack Warn­er, braved the bad weath­er as he con­duct­ed an im­promp­tu walk­a­bout on the in­struc­tions of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Dur­ing the two-hour walk­a­bout, Warn­er heard from both young and old about the prob­lems they face in se­cur­ing jobs, a lack of so­cial ameni­ties and ne­glect­ed build­ings which were falling apart. As word spread that Warn­er was tour­ing the area, men and women emerged from their homes hop­ing to get an au­di­ence and high­light their per­son­al prob­lems.

Fol­low­ing the tour, Warn­er said: "What I have seen here to­day is very dis­ap­point­ing. The con­di­tions I have seen is not fit for peo­ple to live in and I am hap­py the res­i­dents came out and talked to me." Ac­com­pa­nied by Dun­can Street res­i­dent Giomar Mar­tinez, Warn­er heard that "not all the guys in the area are bad and on­ly want work." Ask­ing some chil­dren en­gaged in a wa­ter gun­fight if they felt safe, the min­is­ter re­ceived sev­er­al hand­shakes and smiles as they re­spond­ed "yes."

Tak­ing a seat at the Dun­can Street Bas­ket­ball Court, Warn­er lis­tened as Cur­tis Mc Ken­zie and Eliz­a­beth Greasley begged for as­sis­tance. Greasley ap­pealed for a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre where she could teach oth­er sin­gle moth­ers to do hand­i­craft, while Mc Ken­zie pro­duced a list of ideas to im­prove life in the area.

Promis­ing to re­turn to­mor­row with Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter, Em­manuel George; So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh; Hous­ing Min­is­ter, Roodal Mooni­lal; and Sports Min­is­ter, Anil Roberts-at a meet­ing at the East­ern Boys' Gov­ern­ment School so that they too can as­sist in bring­ing back the area, Warn­er said: "We have to bring back the place to what it was be­fore. The peo­ple have to get jobs and we will shall find jobs for them."

Adding that the walk­a­bout was not about se­cur­ing a vote, Warn­er said: "I don't care about that. At the end of the day, they are peo­ple too and when you are liv­ing in con­di­tions that are so poor and so im­pov­er­ished, next to peo­ple who are so rich and so wealthy, this kind of ne­glect is un­prece­dent­ed and must be cor­rect­ed."

Warn­er said the ef­fort was al­so part of the mul­ti­pronged ap­proach to fight crime be­cause "to fight crime, you have to re­move the con­di­tions that cause crime. We have to give peo­ple jobs, we have to fix peo­ples' homes and we have to give peo­ple so­cial sur­round­ings. Fight­ing crime is not on­ly about po­lice and guns, it's about re­spect and dig­ni­ty and giv­ing them jobs."

Urg­ing res­i­dents to "plas­ter the bul­let holes in the walls and re­move mem­o­ries of those bul­let holes and let us be­gin a new era and put the past be­hind us," Warn­er said the Gov­ern­ment will bring back Dun­can, Nel­son, Char­lotte and George Streets to what they were be­fore. Part of that ef­fort will al­so in­clude pro­vid­ing res­i­dents with start up ma­te­r­i­al and equip­ment, as well as teach­ing them skills they can use to se­cure sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.

Pri­or to yes­ter­day's walk­a­bout, Warn­er met with a three-mem­ber del­e­ga­tion from Illi­nois, re­gard­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of a Com­mu­ni­ty Trans­for­ma­tion Min­istry (CTM) project lo­cal­ly. The vis­it formed part of a wider ini­tia­tive be­tween the Evan­gel­i­cal Church of the West In­dies (ECWI) and a group of five African-Amer­i­can church­es in the Peo­ria, Illi­nois, area.