MONTEGO BAY, St James – Scores of youngsters from Mount Salem and surrounding areas are to benefit

from training in digital animation and construction, among other skills, following the completion of the planned multimillion-dollar rehabilitation of the community centre in the area.

Work to transform the run-down facility is to be facilitated under the Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) programme and is one of several critical projects to be implemented under the Zone of Special Operations (ZOSO), which was declared in Mount Salem in 2017.

“…The community centre is being actually managed under the HOPE programme and the idea is to integrate programmes like digital animation, along with the construction trades and other skills within the centre. And so, it is under that programme that the community centre will be upgraded,” disclosed deputy chairman of the ZOSO Social Intervention Committee, Omar Sweeney, who is also managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF).

He revealed that the transformation of the community centre is one of three projects expected to get underway early next year, citing that during this month, a contract for the $45-million upgrade of the Mount Salem Police Station is expected to be signed, and work should also commence during the early part of 2021.

The third project, he disclosed, is the rehabilitation of the Mount Salem Primary and Junior High School, which should also begin early next year.

“Now the fact that the school has not started face-to-face at this time has given us some more time to really put that in place. The funds I know have already been approved by the board of JSIF, and we intend to now get that through procurement as quickly as possible for early start in 2021,” Sweeney said.

He explained that the main building of the school was condemned because the structural steel-flooring system has been compromised.

He argued that the overall intention is to ensure that citizens “of these communities have these resources available to them for public meetings, as well as to give teachers and police officers access, not just for crimes, but as somebody who can guide and counsel, give support and advice and so”.

In fact, the upgraded police station will be specially designed to be “more citizen- friendly”, where civilians can walk and not “see the armoury of the police”.

“We have integrated all of these in the design aspects and we expect that this month here we will be signing the contract for the implementation of the station, which is not only for the citizens, but I know the hard-working policemen and women have been clamouring for that,” he said.

The deputy chairman of the ZOSO Social Intervention Committee pointed out that the long-term plan is to continue to work with the National Housing Trust and the Ministry of Housing to look at the housing programme that will be put in place for Mount Salem.

Sweeney was speaking to reporters following the opening ceremony of The University of the West Indies, Mona, Western Jamaica Campus (UWI-WJC), inaugural three-day Caribbean Sustainable Cities Conference, held under the theme: ‘Go Green. Go Safe. Go Smart’, at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, last week.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Homer Davis, who congratulated the UWI-WJC campus director, Dr Patrick Prendergast and his team at the university for conceptualising the conference, lauded the work of ZOSO in the transformation of Mount Salem.

“The Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) Act 2017 was created to curb the nation’s crime by targeting vulnerable communities, and you here who are familiar with Montego Bay have seen what this Act has done for the community of Mount Salem,” Davis said.

The Mount Salem community has not seen a significant decline in murders, but has also achieved a raft of social improvements in the wake of the security measure.

So far, extensive work has been done in the area of waste management, a zinc fence removal project was initiated, which saw zinc fences removed and replaced with reinforced concrete walls; roads have been rehabilitated, scores of households have had their accounts regularised by the National Water Commission (NWC), among other benefits.