JENNIFER Bailey, who along with her five daughters were two months ago left homeless after fire razed a tenement in the community of Bell Rock in St Andrew, had something to smile about yesterday, Labour Day.

Bailey and her family had nowhere to go and no one to turn to so they were forced to live under a tent at the spot where their humble dwelling once stood. Yesterday, however, they got welcome relief from the local telecoms company, Gotel, which tarted to rebuild Bailey’s home and those of the other 13 families displaced by the fire.

Yesterday, as community members and Gotel staff laid building blocks and nailed board, Bailey expressed her gratitude.

“We are very elated. My children were devastated. One of my daughters tried to commit suicide and she now has to be going to counselling,” Bailey said. “Another one has Scoliosis and her surgery had to be set back because of the fire. We lost everything.”

Gotel chairman, George Neil, said his company was moved to help after hearing about the fire.

“We heard about this terrible thing and thought that it could not cost us too much to lend a helping hand. This is a trying family with the girls going to high school and losing everything. We had to assist,” Neil told the Observer.

The rebuilding of the houses in Bell Rock, which cost Gotel about $3 million, was one of a number of Labour Day projects in several inner-city communities in Kingston, the Jamaican capital.

Police from the Olympic Gardens station and members of the Olympic Gardens Police Youth Club also got their hands dirty when they refurbished the home of two elderly women at 34 Tower Avenue.

The women, 90-year-old Liana Lawrence and Ida Emmanuel, 80, were pleased with the assistance they got.

“Thanks to the police and the people for coming and helping us,” Emmanuel said.

The women’s house was badly damaged and leaking, and was in need of a ‘spruce-up’. Sub-officer in charge of the Olympic Gardens Police Station, Inspector Paul Robinson, said the project was aimed at easing some of the social conditions which contribute to the high levels of crime in the communities.

“We will always be willing to assist in whatever way we can because we know how hard life is for some people in these communities,” Robinson said.

At the Trench Town Primary School, teachers, students and members of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund were busy setting up a garden and planting fruit trees on the school compound. The group of volunteers planted cassava, sweet peppers, peppers, pak choi, cabbage, tomato suckers, as well as june plum, ackee and apple trees.

The school’s principal, Marlene Sewell-Sullivan, promised that the school population would make sure that the gardens were well kept.

“It is wonderful, not just because it will supplement the daily meal we provide the students with, but it will teach them to cherish trees and plants,” Sewell-Sullivan said, Seedlings were also planted at the New Day Primary and All Age School in Grant’s Pen while some residents opted to paint walls defaced by graffiti.

A vegetable garden was also planted at Tawes Pen in Spanish Town, St Catherine.

However, apart from the Labour Day activities that were centred around schools or churches, not many inner-city persons seemed interested. In many communities residents simply lounged about and seemed unaware of the meaning of Labour Day.

“Me no have no space fi plant nutten in the ghetto so me not even a think about that right now. People can’t even find food but dem a talk ’bout Labour Day,” said one woman from an area known as Castle Gardens in Barbican.