Cherisse Moe

Af­ter two years of com­ing sec­ond, the South Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre has claimed the top spot, beat­ing 33 oth­er cen­tres na­tion­wide to take the Best Kept Com­mu­ni­ty/Meet­ing Place ti­tle in the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s com­pe­ti­tion. As­ses­sors vis­it­ed in ear­ly Ju­ly, and the win­ners were an­nounced on Ju­ly 30.

Lo­cat­ed on Se­nior Street, La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin, the fa­cil­i­ty serves rough­ly 9,000 res­i­dents of the Four Roads and La Puer­ta ar­eas. It dates back to 1960, al­though the cur­rent build­ing was opened on No­vem­ber 19, 2020, by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Speak­ing on be­half of the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the South Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Gi­na Ab­dool said most mem­bers of the group had been to­geth­er for sev­er­al years, guid­ed by their theme song: “If I could help some­body as I pass along, then my liv­ing will not be in vain.”

In prepa­ra­tion for this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, vol­un­teers cleaned the build­ing from top to bot­tom, re­paint­ed it and re­tained the same colour scheme in­side and out.

Ab­dool de­scribed the recog­ni­tion as an ho­n­our for every­one in­volved. “It proved that the cen­tre of­fi­cials made every ef­fort to iden­ti­fy what was need­ed to el­e­vate the fa­cil­i­ty to first place,” she told Guardian Me­dia. “We as a group felt very ex­cit­ed and proud to be the best kept cen­tre in the bor­ough of Diego Mar­tin.”

Out­reach and com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes

In­side those walls, the re­al work con­tin­ues every day. Dance class­es, aer­o­bics, gym ses­sions and chair ex­er­cis­es for se­niors are avail­able, along with sewing, cro­chet, home­work as­sis­tance, dru­mol­o­gy and sea­son­al cook­ing class­es. Boys en­joy play­ing foot­ball in the near­by sa­van­nah af­ter school, and the coun­cil al­so sup­ports lo­cal CARIF­TA ath­letes, work­ing with a com­mu­ni­ty train­er who mo­ti­vates and pre­pares the young com­peti­tors.

A doc­tor af­fil­i­at­ed with the fa­cil­i­ty, who wants to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty, of­fers free health check-ups reg­u­lar­ly. Ab­dool is urg­ing more res­i­dents to take ad­van­tage of the ser­vice.

Twelve-year-old Jah­mya Tou­s­saint is one of the reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pants in dru­mol­o­gy. “I feel hap­py and ex­cit­ed about drum­ming be­cause it al­lows me to ex­press my­self and learn some­thing new. I en­joy go­ing to class­es be­cause I get to learn dif­fer­ent rhythms, im­prove my skills, and work to­geth­er with the oth­er drum­mers,” she told us. “Per­form­ing is al­so a great ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause I get to share my tal­ent with oth­ers and make them hap­py. Even though I might feel ner­vous some­times, I feel proud of my­self when I per­form. Drum­ming has taught me dis­ci­pline, team­work, and con­fi­dence, and I look for­ward to learn­ing more and be­com­ing a bet­ter drum­mer.”

Dance in­struc­tor Alana Doyle has treat­ed the cen­tre as a sec­ond home for the past five years and said it had made a re­al dif­fer­ence. “The pos­i­tive im­pact of move­ment on our stu­dents since us­ing the cen­tre has been big for us. It has giv­en our dancers - rang­ing in age from three to 70 years old - a safe, clean and wel­com­ing space to learn, grow and ex­press them­selves. It has built their con­fi­dence, dis­ci­pline and sense of com­mu­ni­ty.”

Doyle runs Body Lan­guage Dance Stu­dio with di­rec­tor Le­ston De Roche. Now in its 17th year, the school en­tered the cen­tre in this year’s Best Kept com­pe­ti­tion and helped it se­cure the ti­tle. “We are tru­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­ued sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty and its staff.”

A safe space for youths

Per­haps one of the cen­tre’s most im­por­tant pro­grammes is its sus­pen­sion cen­tre, run in part­ner­ship with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice and the com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil. It aims to keep sus­pend­ed stu­dents off the streets and out of trou­ble, while of­fer­ing guid­ance and train­ing to help them re­turn to school with a clear­er head.

Al­though ex­act num­bers are dif­fi­cult to es­tab­lish be­cause of the con­stant flow of stu­dents, Ab­dool added: “But it is con­tin­u­ous—that’s to tell you chil­dren are be­ing sus­pend­ed on a reg­u­lar ba­sis.”

Work­ing to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly, the coun­cil is stay­ing the course be­cause the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to show up.

“Our fo­cus con­tin­ues to be our young peo­ple and se­nior cit­i­zens,” she said. “Cre­at­ing a health­i­er lifestyle for our se­niors and en­cour­ag­ing our young stu­dents to be the best they can be. Any area they choose to pur­sue they can ex­cel, just be­lieve in God and be­lieve in them­selves. The sky is their lim­it.”