The for­mer St Michael’s School for Boys, which is now un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vices is ex­pect­ed to be re­fur­bished at a cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5.9 mil­lion.

Three mil­lion will be con­tributed by Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU).

A press re­lease by the min­istry said Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, Fitzger­ald Hinds, ac­com­pa­nied by Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Fa­rook Ho­sein and Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries, Mar­cia Lon­don-McKel­lar and Claire David­son-Williams, re­cent­ly toured the fa­cil­i­ty.

The min­istry said rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, the De­fence Force (TTDF), Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and the An­gli­can Board, were al­so present as Hinds in­spect­ed the trade in­struc­tion block, ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ings, class­rooms, kitchen and din­ing fa­cil­i­ties, dor­mi­to­ries and laun­dry fa­cil­i­ties.

“The col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of all stake­hold­ers iden­ti­fied, for the suc­cess of this project are crit­i­cal and ur­gent. We have a se­ri­ous work pro­gramme ahead of us at the min­istry, whose ethos is not to see the youth as a hin­drance, but to re­alise their true po­ten­tial as co-con­trib­u­tors of sus­tain­able na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” Hinds said.

The min­istry added that re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive works are an­tic­i­pat­ed to be­gin short­ly, and will in­clude elec­tri­cal, plumb­ing, paint­ing, roof works, land­scap­ing, pow­er wash­ing and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous works nec­es­sary to en­able the min­istry to de­liv­er a res­i­den­tial restora­tive de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme for boys be­tween 12 to 18 years in need of care and su­per­vi­sion.

The min­istry said it in­tends to work with all stake­hold­ers to re­store the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty and mod­ernise the fa­cil­i­ty to “pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence this unique sub­set of the youth pop­u­la­tion that are await­ing the com­ple­tion of this project.”

The re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty will be over­seen by the De­fence Force.

The for­mer St Michael’s School for Boys in Diego Mar­tin was closed in 2018 af­ter 129 years in ex­is­tence.

Back in 2019 Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roya said St Michael’s is be­ing “re-brand­ed and re-pur­posed in­to a mod­el home for boys” and the new fa­cil­i­ty will have a dif­fer­ent name and house at least 70 boys.

The prop­er­ty is still owned by the An­gli­can Church.