JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Mediation centre, gym for homeless

by

20131226

If all goes ac­cord­ing to plan, by next year street dwellers would have a gym where they can go and work out and a place where they can sit and peace­ful­ly med­i­tate, Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh said yes­ter­day morn­ing.Ra­mad­hars­ingh made the dis­clo­sure at the Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons at River­side Plaza, Port-of-Spain, where he and sev­er­al oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions spent the bet­ter part of Christ­mas Day with street dwellers.

More than 100 home­less peo­ple re­sid­ing at tran­si­tion­al homes through­out the coun­try, in­clud­ing Trans­formed Life Min­istries and the Pi­paro Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre, were treat­ed to Christ­mas lunch and en­ter­tain­ment from ca­lyp­son­ian Ed­win Ay­oung, bet­ter known as Crazy, and pan­nist Pro­fes­sor Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore.He said he planned to vis­it the Po­lice Youth Club in Beetham Gar­dens, Laven­tille and some res­i­dents in his con­stituen­cy of Ca­roni Cen­tral be­fore head­ing home.

"It has come to this. I em­brace it," he said, re­fer­ring to how he spent Christ­mas Day.Ra­mad­hars­ingh said Cab­i­net ap­proved $10 mil­lion about one month ago for the up­grade of the Port-of-Spain cen­tre which will in­clude a gym, med­i­ta­tion and coun­selling cen­tres, recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties and lock­ers.

"The de­sign was done pro bono by for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter John Humphrey and we are al­ready in talks with the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Co Ltd and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry on how to ap­proach the work which is ex­pect­ed to be­gin next year."

Ra­mad­hars­ingh said his min­istry was al­so ne­go­ti­at­ing to pur­chase a fa­cil­i­ty to house an ex­tra 200 street dwellers.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored