Labour Day plans in high gear

PORT ANTONIO, Portland — As plans for Labour Day get into high gear, a total of 28 projects have been registered with the Labour Day committees of Portland and St Mary.

In St Mary, a total of 19 projects have been registered, while nine have so far been confirmed in Portland.

Labour Day activities will be observed on Thursday, May 23 under the theme ‘Let’s make Jamaica nice and clean and keep it clean’. Both parishes have designated the cleaning up and beautification of Port Antonio and Port Maria — the respective capitals of Portland and St Mary — as their parish projects.

Agricultural show 2002 launched

KINGSTON — The Kingston and St Andrew Association of Branch Societies of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) last Friday launched ‘Agricultural Show 2002’, to be held on May 25 and 26 at Jamaica College, Old Hope Road.

Norman Grant, president of the association, who spoke at the launch at the Ministry of Agriculture, said this was the sixth annual industrial show of its kind. He said the show would be “bigger and better” this year, as it would be held over two days for the first time.

School to benefit from Sandals Negril Labour Day project

NEGRIL, Westmoreland — Thirty-Five members of staff and managers from Sandals Negril Beach Resort and Spa will, on Labour Day this year, focus their attention to the resort’s adopted school, Whitehall Basic and Preparatory in Red Ground, Negril.

The main thrust will be to thoroughly clean up the school grounds and beautify the place with the planting of new flowers and fruit trees, landscaping existing garden beds, manicuring the lawn, and pruning trees and existing plants. The team will also clean the verges on the outside running parallel to the school, and extend their efforts to include removal of garbage and litter in the immediate vicinity of the school. Flowers will also be planted outside the school compound.

Buchanan hails Operation PRIDE

PORT MARIA, St Mary — New Water and Housing Minister Donald Buchanan has described Operation PRIDE as an ambitious programme which has stimulated meaningful savings among the poor.

At the same time, Buchanan said that PRIDE, the government’s shelter programme for poor Jamaicans, has contributed to curtailing possible social and environmental degradation.

He made these comments while speaking at a handing-over ceremony of certificates of possession for lots in the Eden Park Operation PRIDE project at the Brimmervale High School in Bailey’s Vale, Port Maria, St Mary last Wednesday.

Major road improvement for Clarendon, Manchester

MAY PEN, Clarendon — Thirty-four kilometres of roads in the parishes of Clarendon and Manchester are to be rehabilitated at a cost of $221.2 million under the Government’s Urban/Rural Township Road Rehabilitation and Maintenance programme.

Transport and Works Minister Robert Pickersgill said that work would be done on 19 kilometres of roads in Clarendon comprising Denbigh Crescent, Old Paisley Road, Canaan Heights, Sunnyside Road, Longbridge Avenue, Hazard Drive, Chatteau Road and Denbigh Settlement, while 19 kilometres will be worked on in Manchester to involve sections of Nevan Place, Kenworth Heights, Guildford Gardens and roads in the Rosedale sub-division.

May 22 is Jamaica Day

KINGSTON — The country will, for the first time, celebrate ‘Jamaica Day’ on May 22 under the theme, ‘Celebrating the Many’.

On that day, schools will be asked to put on cultural events focused on the country’s different ethnic groups.

In a recent interview with JIS News, Education Minister Senator Burchell Whiteman said the theme for the day was based on Jamaica’s motto: ‘Out of Many, One People.’

“It’s a day when we focus on the different ethnic and religious groups that make up the fabric of Jamaica’s society, and pay particular attention to the concept of respecting each other, learning from each other and working together,” he said.