Dear Editor,

I wish to appeal to the powers that be to reopen and expand the Broad Gate Skills Training Centre in St Mary. The centre was opened in the mid-1990s but was closed in 2008 by the government. At the time over sixty young people were being trained in electrical welding, garment manufacturing, embroidery, etc.

Training at the centre saw a substantial number of young men and women being gainfully employed. Officers from the Jamaica National Building Society (Annotto Bay) had regular seminars with the students, showing them how to manage a business in all its forms.

The JNBS also donated two welding plants to complement the one we had. We had 14 sewing machines – industrial and otherwise. Three years after the closure, these machines and other equipment lie rotting away, while young men and women walk the community of Broad Gate and its surroundings with nothing productive to do. The community is pleading for help.

Desmond Martin

Annotto Bay

St Mary