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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Beetham entrepreneurs thriving in “Hell Yard”

by

2690 days ago
20180304

CHARLES KONG SOO

When peo­ple hear the word “Beetham”, it con­jures up night­mar­ish im­ages of an area stig­ma­tised with ram­pant pover­ty, crime, and vi­o­lence.

With acrid smoke bil­low­ing from the land­fill and gun smoke em­a­nat­ing from the en­clave, mo­torists dri­ve through the Beetham High­way gaunt­let at max­i­mum speed with their win­dows up and car doors locked fear­ful of mis­siles thrown at their ve­hi­cles or de­bris strewn on the road in at­tempt­ed rob­beries in grid­lock traf­fic.

Mo­torists would rather dri­ve out of the high­way sac­ri­fic­ing a rim rather than risk be­ing robbed try­ing to change a blown tyre on the Beetham. The mem­o­ry of the trau­ma co­me­di­an Nik­ki Cros­by and oth­er mo­torists ex­pe­ri­enced when they were trapped in the protest along the Beetham High­way and mis­siles were thrown at their ve­hi­cles on No­vem­ber 23, 2017, is still fresh in many cit­i­zens' minds.

There are many shin­ing ex­am­ples of hope and po­ten­tial for good in Beetham Gar­dens, how­ev­er, that go un­no­ticed.

Coun­cil­lor for Phase 4 and 5 in Beetham Gar­dens Adan­na Grif­fith-Gor­don host­ed more than 30 chil­dren from schools in the area to see the Black Pan­ther movie at Movi­eTowne last week Sat­ur­day.

24 of the 26 stu­dents from the Ex­cel Beetham Es­tate Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School who took the Sec­ondary School As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am­i­na­tions in 2017 had achieved places in sec­ondary schools.

Ka­reem Mar­celle is the first-time win­ner of the 2017 Makan­dal Daa­ga Schol­ar­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing his LLB at UWI.

There are small steps be­ing tak­en to change the mind­set of res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty, the neg­a­tive “Hell Yard” in Phase 4 and 5 has been changed to the more pos­i­tive “Hope Gar­den” signs in the area.

When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the area on Tues­day around 5 pm, res­i­dents re­turn­ing home from work and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty stopped by the neigh­bour­hood pie man and dou­bles men who were do­ing a brisk trade at Phase 4. A ham­burg­er and hot dog ven­dor was now set­ting up his cart. If some­one in Beetham want­ed cof­fee, chick­en and chips or sand­wich from a fast food fran­chise he would ei­ther have to go to Port-of-Spain or Mor­vant.

Tak­ing ad­van­tage of this food mar­gin­al­iza­tion, en­tre­pre­neurs did not wait for a hand­out, they saw an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fill this need and small shops, cafés, bars and ven­dors be­gan to emerge sell­ing street food, lo­cal chick­en and chips, BBQ, dou­bles, pies, corn soup, and drinks in their com­mu­ni­ty.

There was a bou­tique store on the cor­ner, what the lo­cals call “Tem­po Street,” from the dou­bles and pie ven­dors. A lit­tle girl went to the ad­ja­cent store and bought a bot­tle of bleach. A grand­fa­ther with his grand­son hold­ing sev­er­al dol­lar bills went in­to the store to buy lol­lipops. Young boys rode up on their bi­cy­cles to buy from the ven­dors. Sev­er­al chil­dren rode on hov­er­boards through the streets and the po­lice ve­hi­cle pa­trols were reg­u­lar.

Speak­ing briefly with the Sun­day Guardian while at­tend­ing to his cus­tomers, Car­li, of Car­li and Tri­cia Dou­bles, said “I born and grew up in Phase 4, I love eat­ing dou­bles. I didn't see any­body sell­ing dou­bles in the Beetham, the clos­est place is Port-of-Spain or Mor­vant and Barataria.

“So we 'try ah ting' and be­gan sell­ing dou­bles here two years now.

“It's good if you could find some­thing you like do­ing and make a lit­tle mon­ey too.”

While Car­li cashed, his as­sis­tant “Bar­ra Ku­da” put the dou­bles to­geth­er.

Mike the pie man, al­so from the com­mu­ni­ty, said he was sell­ing his de­li­cious chick­en, fish, beef, and pota­to pies on the spot for three years and it was hon­est and ful­fill­ing job.

Derek Hug­gins, chair­man of the Beetham Com­mu­ni­ty Ac­tion Coun­cil, said the area was even by­passed by the Ca­ble Com­pa­ny which ex­pand­ed its ser­vices to Barataria first, but res­i­dents now have ca­ble ac­cess.

He said Beetham had its own J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions and blocko par­ties, and be­sides the food ven­dors, there was an In­ter­net café, join­er, fish­er­man, and hair­dress­er in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Hug­gins, a mem­ber of the Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme (CSP), said the Beetham al­so pro­duced doc­tors, lawyers, politi­cians, pan peo­ple, po­lice of­fi­cers, prison of­fi­cers, sol­diers, teach­ers, bank per­son­nel, sports peo­ple, gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees, me­dia work­ers, dancers, and en­ter­tain­ers.

He said un­em­ploy­ment was a ma­jor is­sue for many youths in the area and crime had be­fall­en on some young men.

'Youth afraid to leave com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of ri­val­ry with Pic­ton Street'

Pamela Williams, a teacher at the All In One Child De­vel­op­ment Cen­tre, said many young peo­ple were not work­ing, this was com­pound­ed by them be­ing afraid to ven­ture out of the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause of the ri­val­ry be­tween Pic­ton Street and Beetham, and many of them are even afraid to en­ter Port-of-Spain.

Williams said some youth go to learn skills and trade at Ser­vol and the T&T Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC).

The Phase 4 res­i­dent said there were al­so two seam­stress­es and a tai­lor in Beetham, and some youths worked at the dump sort­ing cop­per and scrap iron.

Williams said when mo­torists' ve­hi­cles shut down on the high­way or spun out of con­trol in an ac­ci­dent, res­i­dents came out and helped them.

Keon Isaac, 16, from Phase 4 said he hus­tles in the dump from Mon­day to Fri­day re­cy­cling ob­jects and some­times finds mon­ey and gold, wed­ding rings, and even coffins.

Car­li the dou­bles man said even he and oth­er adults al­so went for­ag­ing in the dump when “hard times” hit them.

Keon Daniel, 22, from Phase 5 who al­so hus­tled in the dump said the most im­por­tant thing for youth in the area was jobs and el­e­vat­ing them­selves.

Sarah Beck­ett, from Phase 3, said in or­der to get on to the coun­cil­lor for Beetham/Pic­ton Ak­il Au­dain to get help, res­i­dents had to go to his of­fice in Laven­tille which was at war with Beetham, and women as well as men were not tak­ing that risk.

Janet Ray­mond said some­times when self-help pro­grammes were run­ning in the com­mu­ni­ty, Phase 3 res­i­dents were un­aware of these pro­grammes while the oth­er Phas­es knew about them.

Coun­cil­lor: Lit­er­a­cy and self-help pro­grammes avail­able

When the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed coun­cil­lor for Phase 4 and 5 in Beetham Gar­dens Adan­na Grif­fith-Gor­don on Wednes­day, she had just re­turned from the play park in the Beetham to over­see the paint­ing of ta­bles and chairs there.

She said there were lit­er­a­cy pro­grammes con­duct­ed at the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Phase 2 op­er­at­ed by Of­fi­cer Charles from the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF), which had a group called Hearts and Minds.

Grif­fith-Gor­don said the Beetham Po­lice Youth Club and res­i­dents such as Stephen­son West­field, pres­i­dent of the Beetham Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Vil­lage Coun­cil al­so played an ac­tive role in the com­mu­ni­ty.


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