Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

Res­i­dents of Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, say they are hold­ing Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er to his word for his promise of 120 jobs and food cards for 50 fam­i­lies in time for the Christ­mas sea­son. Warn­er, who went to hear the plight of the res­i­dents at Pro­duc­tion Av­enue on Thurs­day evening, said, "Don't ex­pect hand­outs. This is not a hand­out, but a hand-up to free you from the stig­ma that noth­ing good could come out of Sea Lots."

Warn­er not on­ly promised a bright and mer­ry Christ­mas for the res­i­dents, but told them to look at this as the dawn of a new era, as help is on its way. He pulled out his list of good­ies be­fore the res­i­dents pulled out their list of woes and strug­gles, say­ing he un­der­stood their needs be­cause they were no dif­fer­ent from oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in need.

Among the good­ies are:

• The Min­istry of Hous­ing has al­ready agreed to pro­vide two con­trac­tors to start work in the area where 120 work­ers will be­gin al­most im­me­di­ate­ly for Christ­mas and where the army will over­see the pro­gramme to en­sure or­der and eq­ui­ty in the sys­tem

• Fifty tem­po­rary food cards to give to 50 fam­i­lies in need of food and help. Warn­er said he has asked the Min­istry of the Peo­ple to come and dis­cuss how these cards will func­tion and be dis­trib­uted

• Gan­ga Singh, Min­is­ter of En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources has al­so asked for a small del­e­ga­tion to meet with him to dis­cuss up­grade and clear­ing drains in the dis­trict

• Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment) and Em­manuel George (Works) are al­so on board with re­spect to re­pair­ing roads and a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and any in­fra­struc­ture that re­quires at­ten­tion

Jobs for Sealots res­i­dents

How­ev­er, Warn­er warned: "We would try to im­prove your so­cial con­di­tions. We will try to re­move those con­di­tions that en­cour­age a life of crime-but on the oth­er hand, we will ex­pect you to live with­in the bound­aries of the law and to be­have as re­spon­si­ble peo­ple, be­cause it takes two to tan­go."

Sea Lots ne­glect­ed

The res­i­dents who ap­plaud­ed the var­i­ous ini­tia­tives still took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press their con­cerns. They had no qualms telling Warn­er how hard they worked for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's elec­tion cam­paign and to date they said they have re­ceived no help. "Re­mem­ber when you promised me a bed and tell me to go pray that you be­come a min­is­ter so you can help me?" Joy Winn re­mind­ed Warn­er.

"I ral­ly for the Gov­ern­ment, and to date I have re­ceived no help," said Ayan­na Wil­son, a sin­gle moth­er of two aged eight and nine. The res­i­dents said they feel ne­glect­ed as oth­er com­mu­ni­ties have been re­ceiv­ing as­sis­tance, while they were be­ing over­looked. They said oth­er min­is­ters had not heed­ed their cries for help. The res­i­dents told Warn­er that they try to help them­selves but are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against by the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of where they live.

Oth­er key ar­eas of con­cern:

• Im­proved hous­ing

• Sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment

• Need for a walkover across the Beetham, es­pe­cial­ly for the chil­dren and el­der­ly

• Re­pairs to the pre-school and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre

• Flood­ing, as most of them live very close to the mouth of the East Dry Riv­er and are cur­rent­ly liv­ing in sludge and at the mer­cy of flood­wa­ters

• Re-open­ing a pro­gramme for women

Af­ter Warn­er lis­tened to the plight of the res­i­dents, he said, "Every­thing can­not be fixed at once, but we would put a sys­tem in place that recog­nis­es your needs and ad­vise you how it can be ad­dressed, where pri­or­i­ty would be giv­en to the most crit­i­cal is­sues."

He said a reg­is­tra­tion desk would be set up at the bas­ket­ball court where fam­i­lies in dire need could reg­is­ter for the food card and in­for­ma­tion be tak­en on the hous­es that need im­me­di­ate re­pair. Warn­er said skilled and un­skilled work­ers will al­so have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to reg­is­ter for work.

Calls to some res­i­dents yes­ter­day con­firmed that Warn­er kept his word and res­i­dents came out in their num­bers to reg­is­ter for the food card and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.