Sport and Community Development Minister Shamfa Cudjoe is calling on Best Village groups to not just compete but also contribute to their respective communities.
The Minister made the comment while speaking at an interfaith service for the Best Village community at the Carenage Fish Fry in Carenage yesterday. The Best Village community is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
“As Minister of Sports and Community Development, my responsibility for Best Village over the past two and a half years, I’m calling on Best Village groups to get up and to do their part,” Cudjoe said.
“You’ve said that you are responsible and can give so much to the schools and your community. How many groups are really out there doing programmes in your community? How many of you are meeting outside of performance periods? It’s not only about entertainment and competition, it’s about development. We, the Government, provide the necessary resources.”
She continued, “We have the Care Grant for community development. Last year, we had over 193 groups registering and participating in the Prime Minister’s Best Village Trophy competition. So, you have to organise yourself to operate and to move throughout your community in and out of Best Village competition season. It’s more than the competition, it’s more than who won Miss La Reine Rive.
“You live in your communities and you see what is taking place in your community. You know who the elders are, you know who the leaders are, you know who needs help, you know who doesn’t. But at the end of the year, when I look at who’s applying for funding, if we get five, we get plenty. I’m saying at this point in time, we have over 240 Best Village groups registered for 2023.”
The Minister noted that those involved in the Best Village also need to take advantage of the funding.
“As we celebrate 60, I want to see you organise yourselves to have programmes throughout, not only the competition, and apply for that funding because that funding is there. And when you don’t apply, the other groups which apply, we give it to them because the funding has to go because if there’s one thing I don’t do is sit down on money,” she said.
“The money is meant to give to the people to do their work in their community and that is what we’ll do. The challenge also is for us in the ministry, with a budget of roughly 6 million, at least 6 million dollars per year, to run the Best Village competition. I charge my officers to spend that money. And that’s all.”
She added, “So Best Village community, you have to get up also and move. We as governments stand ready and willing to help and to provide that support. And a major part of the Best Village budget also goes to tutoring. A good 20-30 per cent goes to tutoring, which is the people in the community who know to dance and who know the arts and so on to go out and to help and to show each other. So, therefore, the money is supposed to be spread throughout the community. So, you need to hold each other responsible, and I don’t want to see a cent of that 6 million dollars going back at the end of the fiscal year.”
She noted that this Best Village competition will see the return of the food and folk fairs, the Clean and Beautified project and Village Olympics throughout the country.
