SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Plans by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) to con­struct a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment in Mor­vant are not sit­ting well with foot­ball coach Nevick De­noon, who feels that pri­or­i­ty should be placed on at-risk chil­dren in the crime hot spot in­stead of de­liv­ery of homes.

De­noon, man­ag­er/own­er of Mor­vant El­e­ments, spoke to Guardian Me­dia about the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to con­struct a hous­ing project at Co­conut Dri­ve, mere me­tres from the Mor­vant Recre­ation­al Grounds and pavil­ion which has been ne­glect­ed for more than a decade.

The grounds and pavil­ion are used dai­ly by young foot­ball play­ers who are ex­posed to gang war­fare, gun vi­o­lence, mur­ders and pover­ty in Mor­vant.

Many of the play­ers, De­noon said, are at-risk chil­dren who face trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences and need train­ing to cope and avoid be­ing roped in­to gangs or crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Last month, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia in a What­sapp mes­sage that “13 hous­ing units” will be con­struct­ed be­hind the pavil­ion with sup­port­ing in­fra­struc­ture such as a road, re­tain­ing wall and drainage.

The news in­fu­ri­at­ed De­noon.

De­noon said his anger goes back to 2018 when the Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to utilise a por­tion of the grounds to build the Mor­vant Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool.

“They take part of the grounds for the pool. So the field be­came small­er for train­ing.”

When the swim­ming pool was con­struct­ed, De­noon said, Leonce and the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott) promised to re­store the grounds to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards af­ter it was par­tial­ly de­stroyed by heavy ma­chin­ery.

“That nev­er hap­pened. They nev­er re­pair the grounds to this day,” De­noon said while point­ing to small sec­tions of the field that were cov­ered in pud­dles of mud, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the ball to roll smooth­ly dur­ing train­ing.

Sev­er­al ar­eas of the field are al­so un­even.

Rox­anne Sta­ple­ton-Whyms, Ude­cott’s man­ag­er of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mar­ket­ing, has de­nounced claims made by De­noon that the State-owned com­pa­ny had giv­en a com­mit­ment to re­ha­bil­i­tate the foot­ball field dur­ing a meet­ing in 2018.

“The dis­cus­sion cen­tred around con­struc­tion of the swim­ming pool fa­cil­i­ty and if the bud­get per­mit­ted, con­sid­er­a­tion would be giv­en to the restora­tion of the foot­ball field,” Sta­ple­ton-Whyms re­spond­ed in an email.

Re­gard­ing the im­pact con­struc­tion works would have had on the field, Sta­ple­ton-Whyms said “the dam­aged ar­eas were ful­ly re­stored,” and sub­se­quent to the open­ing of the swim­ming pool the field was in full use.

The swim­ming pool

The swim­ming pool was of­fi­cial­ly opened by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in De­cem­ber 2021.

De­noon showed Guardian Me­dia a let­ter dat­ed April 27, 2023, sent to Row­ley in­form­ing him that for 40 months they had been await­ing the restora­tion of the field which is used by stu­dents of four schools in Mor­vant, sev­er­al clubs and res­i­dents.

Last year, De­noon said, he heard that the HDC was go­ing to erect hous­es be­hind the pavil­ion but did not take it se­ri­ous­ly.

It was on­ly when De­noon re­cent­ly ob­served piles of sand and dirt be­ing de­posit­ed on the grounds and a sign erect­ed by the Min­istry of Hous­ing with the words “hous­ing and vil­lage im­prove­ment pro­gramme,” he re­alised the project was in­evitable.

De­noon point­ed out that the sign has no “start or com­ple­tion date” for the project.

“Every­thing is be­ing done in se­cret. There was no con­sul­ta­tion with the team or the res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

The lands be­hind the pavil­ion have al­ready been cleared and grad­ed.

Ini­tial­ly, De­noon was told that a car park and out­door bas­ket­ball court would have been built be­hind the pavil­ion for the com­mu­ni­ty.

“That too did not ma­te­ri­alise. Is on­ly promis­es. A promise is a com­fort to the fool....and that is what these politi­cians have been do­ing... fool­ing the peo­ple. I’m re­al­ly fed up with them.”

He said the project com­menced in time for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion to “muster votes.”

De­noon said work on the site has been caus­ing dust and mud on the grounds and dis­rupt­ing the chil­dren’s prac­tice ses­sions.

Too much neg­a­tiv­i­ty in Mor­vant–coach

He said the dis­rup­tion came at a time when the chil­dren just $65,000 in foot­ball gear from US Am­bas­sador to T&T Can­dace Bond.

On April 2, the US Em­bassy T&T post­ed on its Face­book page a pho­to­graph of Bond hap­pi­ly do­nat­ing foot­balls, foot­ball boots, train­ing equip­ment and uni­forms to the club’s play­ers and coach­es.

The em­bassy stat­ed they were proud to sup­port the team which has been a pil­lar in the Mor­vant com­mu­ni­ty for over 40 years, as they con­tin­ue to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of young peo­ple from the area.

The do­na­tion came from Bond fol­low­ing an ar­ti­cle pub­lished last De­cem­ber in the Sun­day Guardian head­lined “Young Mor­vant foot­ballers suc­cumb to pover­ty, gang life.”

De­noon had made a pas­sion­ate plea for cor­po­rate T&T to as­sist his club fi­nan­cial­ly or oth­er­wise, as some of his play­ers came from bro­ken homes, live in pover­ty, dropped out of schools and had no parental guid­ance and sup­port.

In the midst of these ad­ver­si­ties, De­noon said the 50 male play­ers are al­so sur­round­ed by gang war­fare, mur­ders and gun vi­o­lence.

“So, it has been a dou­ble wham­my for them. There is so much neg­a­tiv­i­ty in Mor­vant they need the foot­ball to keep them fo­cused and oc­cu­pied. Foot­ball is the on­ly thing that is keep­ing these chil­dren from go­ing down that dead­ly and dan­ger­ous road. Yet they are be­ing side­lined.”

The play­ers are aged eight to 22.

Since ob­tain­ing the equip­ment, De­noon said, he has seen a pos­i­tive change in his play­ers’ at­ti­tude off and on the field.

Their punc­tu­al­i­ty and at­ten­dance have al­so im­proved.

“Them fel­las have been demon­strat­ing dis­ci­pline and com­mit­ment,” De­noon said, his voice choked with emo­tion.

“Be­fore they didn’t care if a Mon­day fell on a Fri­day. Noth­ing mat­tered to them. It was dif­fi­cult to get them to con­form to our rules. But you know what caused that sud­den turn­around? Is the lit­tle uni­form and foot­ball boots they start­ed wear­ing re­cent­ly. They train with a sense of pride. They feel like some­body.”

De­noon won­dered how long the play­ers would be dis­turbed by on­go­ing work, as they need­ed rig­or­ous train­ing to com­pete in the Caribbean Chil­dren’s Char­i­ty Shield Soc­cer Clas­sic which will be held in Bar­ba­dos in Au­gust.

Formed in the 1980s, Mor­vant El­e­ments was once the top pro­fes­sion­al team in the coun­try, win­ning di­vi­sion­al ti­tles.

“They build the swim­ming pool and they leave the grounds just so. Now they are go­ing to put up hous­es that were nev­er part of the pro­gramme. How long will these play­ers be in­con­ve­nienced? Every­body is play­ing a po­lit­i­cal game. Right now, Leonce is se­cur­ing his po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion,” De­noon said.

Since 2013, De­noon said he has been lob­by­ing for the fa­cil­i­ty to be spruced up.

“Noth­ing is be­ing done to up­lift the grounds as a pri­or­i­ty. How come hous­es are placed in front of peo­ple… es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren who are at risk in Mor­vant, giv­en the spate of mur­ders, shoot­ings and on­go­ing gang war­fare? Right now, some of these chil­dren are al­ready on the streets when they should be in school. This Gov­ern­ment just doesn’t care. All they care about is their po­lit­i­cal sur­vival.”

De­noon said he has to con­stant­ly keep his eyes on his play­ers be­cause gang mem­bers come in search of new re­cruits on the grounds.

“On these very grounds gang mem­bers would sell their drugs and look for play­ers who are vul­ner­a­ble to join a gang.”

He said many of his weak play­ers have fall­en to the gun and if every­one con­tin­ues to turn a blind eye to these chil­dren all hell will break loose.

“The crime sit­u­a­tion will just wors­en.”

Min­is­ter: Pavil­ion,
grounds to be up­grad­ed

In re­sponse to ques­tions, Leonce gave the as­sur­ance that “the pavil­ion and grounds will be up­grad­ed by the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny” but did not give a time­frame in which the project will be com­plet­ed.

He said some in­fra­struc­ture works are cur­rent­ly be­ing car­ried out to im­prove drainage.

Leonce could not say how much the hous­ing project and up­grade of the pavil­ion and grounds would cost tax­pay­ers.

“I am in con­stant con­tact with De­noon. I sup­port him and his team and I know the in­con­ve­nience that he faces now. I know, how­ev­er, when the works are com­plet­ed, this ground will be the en­vy of all oth­er grounds.”

He said no plans are in the pipeline for a car park.

The MP said he was look­ing for­ward to open­ing the new grounds with De­noon and oth­er coach­es that use the space.