ONCE upon a time, Mandela Terrace — a lane off Waltham Park Road in St Andrew East Central — was a typical squatter community devoid of basic infrastructure, fenced with zinc and teeming with young men held in the vice grip of crime.

These days the community is making a turnaround. Zinc fences have been replaced by concrete walls, residents are soon to formally acquire the land, and a group of young people have started income-generating projects they hope will hedge them from crime.

“The aim of all this is to keep us occupied so we can get some income for ourselves and to support wi family,” Dwayne Francis tells the Sunday Observer.

He is referring to the chicken-rearing and farming projects he and 10 other youths, aged 15 to 24, have started with the assistance of community members who have given permission for use of the land and who have provided material for the coop, seeds and seedlings for the farm.

The pieces of land are tiny but the fellows have planted corn, cucumber, peas, pepper, mint and mango. They are almost finished building the coop and only need some mesh, a tarpaulin and, of course, the chickens.

“If it wasn’t for this, there would be violence in the community. We would be robbing and defending war,” admits Hughell Nelson.

The young men say though they have been on the wrong side of the law, with several of them fresh out of jail, having served short sentences, they are seeking to make a permanent change.

“Before this ah pure shot used to lick inna di place. The devil gi idle hands work but when wi working and keeping wiself occupied, at the end ah di day wi go home and sleep. When dis ah gwaan wi no have no time fi idle,” adds Francis.

“When the chickens turnover and wi sell dem and rollover some funds, we planning to build a car wash,” says Simon Alexander of the group’s plans.

They call the man who mentors them and who has provided the material so far — a police detective who lives in the area — their father.

“Is him tell we seh wi can deal wid ah likkle farming to help we and the community. A wi father dat,” Davian Swaby adds.

It is an enviable situation, at least as far as one resident of Lyndhurst Road is concerned. She declines to give her name but says mentoring will go a far way.

“If the younger youth dem could get jobs and a programme of training and motivation [things would get better] — like a community centre where they can play football or netball and do the training and have the older youth dem who pass through the system already encourage them,” she says. “Di youth dem need jobs. You have young kids leaving school because dem parents don’t have it to send them. That’s why you find so much crime in the country because the youth dem nuh have no skill and no job.”

On the subject of crime, it is a problem that plagues several communities in the constituency. Residents of Sutherland Gardens, Maxfield Park Gardens, Hagley Park Gardens, Molynes Gardens, Eastwood Park Gardens and Richmond Park, for example, say women especially are held up and robbed of cash and cellphones, and sometimes raped. Men and old women are often held up, as well, and motorcars stolen.

“Because we’re so centrally located and we have so many exits, we are prone to daytime robbers. Females coming home from work are prone to robberies and rape,” says Mario Lee of Sutherland Gardens.

Lee and four of his neighbours are standing at the corner of Healthshire Avenue, where a man, who earlier this month attempted to steal a motor vehicle, jumped over the fence into someone’s yard and changed his clothes in a bid to throw cops off his trail.

“We have to come in from 7 o’clock at night. We need more police patrols,” he says. “I have three kids and if I am not out here they can’t ride their bicycles outside.”

His neighbours also add tales of relatives and other residents who were held up and robbed at their gates of their valuables.

“We are now thinking of getting our neighbourhood watch organised and have a changing of the guard from the older folk to us younger ones. We got in touch with the police and are to have a meeting at the church soon,” says one resident.

Joan Nooks of Hagley Park Gardens works with a construction company in the community. She says they have had no contracts since 2006 but “we can’t leave the office or they will break in and take over the place”.

“Once we turn our backs we have to watch for them over our shoulders. They will steal the vehicles and the equipment, scrap them and sell them as scrap metal,” she adds.

The increasing commercialisation of residential areas, including those already listed, and bad road conditions, which residents say are caused, in part, by motorists using their communities as throughways, are also challenges faced by the constituency.

“Richmond Park is a community that has become very much commercialised. When I came here to live in 1997 it wasn’t like this. And what is worse is that the people who buy the properties and set up businesses do not live in the area,” says Madgelyn Russell. “If I had the money to afford somewhere else I would sell and move because it affects property value. But this is my life, I can’t just walk away.”

“The roads are in a bad state. For years now they haven’t done anything to it and traffic from the Boulevard use as a throughway. They race through the place and it’s really a bother,” adds retired resident Audrey Chisholm. “We have tried to get permission from the KSAC (Kingston & St Andrew Corporation) and the NWA (National Works Agency) to erect barriers, but they both said no. They say as soon as the Boulevard is widened then conditions will improve, but for a small community it’s annoying and it’s mostly taxis and coaster buses that do it.”

Lebert Hamilton in Eastwood Park Gardens has a similar complaint.

“One of the first things is that the bus and taxi man dem detour off the main road and drive like is a dual carriage highway in here,” he says.

Hamilton added that residents of Eastwood Park Gardens also have other concerns.

“We need more police patrols because thieves come in because the place quiet. Dem have man all ah sell ganja in front of the school [Half-Way-Tree Primary]. I complained to my son’s teacher and to the vice-principal and they said they would discuss it at the next PTA but [my son’s mother] went and said it wasn’t,” he says. “How can you have people selling ganja in front a school? In time to come it ah go look like it okay for di yout dem to smoke. Di next ting is dat you have this bag ah studio ah come inna di area and the artistes dem bring gunman and weed smoking, bad words, gambling and it a bring down the community.”

In Cassia Park, Delroy Brown says the condition of some roads is among the things that need to be addressed, but notes he is tired of talking.

“I live here fi di past 30 years and mi feel like mi deh pon mi own. It nuh mek sense complain right now bout what mi would like to see in the community cause ah just talk. The road waan fix but it nah fix. Ah we did haffi fix it wiself one time,” he says.

There is a similar attitude in Naseberry, an informal settlement between Red Hills Road and Dunrobin Avenue. One male resident refused to speak to the Sunday Observer, saying several people have come to access their situation before but have done nothing to improve their living conditions. The road is unpaved, a small waterway leading from the Sandy Gully is largely uncovered and for most of the year, running water is accessed at Dunrobin Primary.

“Mi tyad fi say di same ting every time,” he says as he walks off.