Accompong, St Elizabeth – Visiting Austrian federal minister for education, science and arts, Helen Gehrer, has donated a brand new big-screen TV/VCR set, valued at over $100,000, to the Accompong Maroon Council in St Elizabeth.

The equipment was handed over late last week.

Minister Gehrer said the gift was a direct result of the ties that had been established between Accompong and other visiting Austrian nationals.

“Our noted world-acclaimed anthropologist, Professor Zipps, who lived here and who wrote a book on Nanny and Cudjoe, insisted that I come to Accompong and bring greetings, as well as this gift,” she said.

The local Maroon museum, the Austrian minister said, could benefit from the use of the new audio-visual equipment she had presented.

“This will allow visitors and Maroons alike to see parts of the extraordinary cultural heritage. We are also planning to copy all material that has been assembled by our Austrian researchers and deliver them to you next time,” she promised.

In accepting the gift, Colonel of the Accompong Maroons, Sydney Peddie, outlined the need to preserve and document his people’s heritage, history and culture.

“This gift will go a long way in helping us to highlight, for our many visitors, a lot of what we have documented,” he said. “We, in Accompong, have long recognised that we have to make use of modern technology, such as computers, to inform the world about the Maroons.”

His vision, he added, was for Accompong to be one of Jamaica’s premier tourist attractions.

“I believe that if we do the right sort of development, this little town can become the most sought-after destination in the West Indies – if not the world,” he maintained. “These days, Montego Bay and Negril are bursting at the seams and so I say with the right structure being put in place, we can get there not too long from now.”

He spoke glowingly of the work that the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) has done in the village, as they helped the Accompong Maroons in their quest to become a world-class tourism attraction as well as a good place to live.

“They have refurbished our community centre and established a library and computer room, installed public sanitary facilities, new garbage bins, established story boards and signs and trained our tour guides,” he said.

Human resource manager at TPDCo, Hugh Shim, gave more details about the role of his organisation.

“What we try to do is to find projects, to do some work in terms of infrastructure, training and so forth,” he explained. “We also helped them to form a community development committee to work on the business of the community.

Because Accompong has been here, visitors have been coming up. What we have tried to do is to ensure that basic amenities are here; it is a town that is a natural attraction in terms of heritage and culture.”

TPDCo is now working with the Maroons to acquire appropriate technology, he added.

“Hopefully, the Colonel will be doing his own marketing by having his own website up and running, so the study and history of Accompong may be accessed via the Internet,” Shim said.