THE Jeffery Town Farmers Association from St Mary yesterday outstripped 13 entrants to take the 2006 Michael Manley Foundation Award for Community Self-Reliance.

An ecstatic secretary of the association, Ivy Gordon, told the Observer that the $200,000 cash prize and trophy award was proof that the work being carried out by the association in the community had been recognised.

She said the association was well ahead in its efforts to see the development of a multimedia centre, the securing of an agro processing unit and the establishment of a community radio station in a bid to develop the community and stem the drift from the rural district.

“We are against the urban drift, so we want to secure a future for Jeffrey Town and develop and strengthen our community. It’s a wholistic approach to bringing our community forward,” Gordon told the Observer.

Gordon said the decision on how to share the prize money would be taken by the community. “We are trying to be self-reliant and the prize money will help the Jeffrey Town farmers to continue doing its work there,” she said.

The 70-member association, headed by a 12-member executive, was formed in 1991.

Yesterday, chief judge for the community award, Dr Peta-Anne Baker, told the awards ceremony held at the Little Theatre in Kingston that the Jeffery Town Farmers Association was to be commended for its efforts to secure the livelihood of the rural community through economic development.

In the meantime, runners-up, the Holy Trinity Basic School, located at Maxfield Park in Kingston, copped the $100,000 Environmental Foundation of Jamaica Award.

Principal of the school Julet Ellis said the school entered mainly because of the inability of a number of students to pay the required fees, which at times resulted in teachers being unpaid for three to four months. Ellis said the plan was to place the sum in a revolving fund for a school fee sponsorship programme.

“It feels fantastic just to have been shortlisted, we are ecstatic,” Ellis told the Observer.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who gave the keynote address at the ceremony, said there was need for community participation in governance. It was important, she said, that all communities embark on developing their community plans as it was impossible to fix the country if the community was not fixed.

The work of the Michael Manley Foundation, said the prime minister, was a bold proclamation that building strong organised communities on the principles of self-reliance formed an effective part of the nation building process.