Melis­sa Doughty

Al­though Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts were a no-show at Pump Trace, Pic­ton, Laven­tille on Sun­day res­i­dents praised Warn­er for the ini­tia­tive tak­en to as­sist in help­ing them con­struct a sport­ing fa­cil­i­ty. The fa­cil­i­ty, con­struct­ed atop an old wa­ter tank, has a bas­ket­ball court, a crick­et pitch, a 50 me­tre run­ning track, a net­ball court, a chil­dren's play pen, ten­nis, and small goal spaces. The fa­cil­i­ty's con­struc­tion was done by the Pump Trace res­i­dents them­selves.

The Pic­ton Pump Trace Youth Im­prove­ment com­mit­tee's pres­i­dent, Net­fa Fe­lix, said the fa­cil­i­ty would not have been pos­si­ble with­out Warn­er's as­sis­tance, who dur­ing meet­ings with Laven­tille res­i­dents last year put plans for the fa­cil­i­ty's con­struc­tion in place. Fe­lix said the fa­cil­i­ty is one way in which the 28-mem­ber com­mit­tee hoped to im­pact up­on crime and cre­ate safe spaces for the youth of Pump Trace.

The fa­cil­i­ty, con­struct­ed in ap­prox­i­mate­ly four months, he added, has served not on­ly the com­mu­ni­ty's youth but al­so the el­der­ly.Re­tired po­lice of­fi­cer Eu­gene Fran­cis, an­oth­er Pump Trace res­i­dent, said: "Mr Warn­er saw to it that this went on stream." While he was dis­ap­point­ed that Warn­er was a no-show, Fran­cis said he un­der­stood be­cause Warn­er is a busy man.

Every­one in the com­mu­ni­ty worked to­geth­er un­der Fe­lix's guid­ance, he said. He de­scribed Fe­lix as a dri­ving force with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. Fran­cis hoped the fa­cil­i­ty demon­strates to T&T and the world that, "there are de­cent, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens in Laven­tille. Any­thing ill is with­in the mi­nor­i­ty. I hope it takes away the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with peo­ple in Laven­tille."

He hoped as well that the fa­cil­i­ty would gen­er­ate a com­pe­ti­tion sim­i­lar to the Hoop for Life which would al­so in­spire the res­i­dents fur­ther. Fran­cis said the com­mu­ni­ty has a lot of tal­ent which could be har­nessed with as­sis­tance from pro­fes­sion­al coach­es and oth­er sport­ing pro­fes­sion­als.

Fe­lix and Fran­cis have asked for as­sis­tance in ac­quir­ing light­ing for the fa­cil­i­ty. Fe­lix said by 6 pm many peo­ple leave the fa­cil­i­ty since it be­comes dark. Light­ing, he said, would as­sist in al­low­ing peo­ple to utilise the fa­cil­i­ty more.