WESTMORELAND, Jamaica – Westmoreland will be the focus of Project STAR come January when an intensive community engagement and planning initiative will commence with the aim of addressing the issues affecting part of the parish.

Project director at Project STAR, Saffrey Brown, made the disclosure while addressing the recent Westmoreland Chamber of Commerce annual dinner held at the Hotel Commingle, in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.

“In January next year, Project STAR will begin working with the community on a process of community engagement, inclusion and community-led planning. There are eight steps Project STAR will take as we seek to enter and start working in Savanna-la-Mar,” she said.

Outlining the eight steps, Brown said these included community mapping and research to get a sense of what is happening in the communities and to better understand the issues being faced.

“We are happy to report that we have completed the mapping part of the process and are currently going through a period of review and analysis of the findings,” she informed her audience.

The second step, she said, will include early engagement and activation planning with critical stakeholders. She noted that the intention was to hear from the community to validate the research findings and start building relationships in the parish.

Brown explained that Project STAR would be working with local stakeholders already engaged in projects, including non-profit organisations (NGO), developmental agencies, service providers and government agencies, in order to identify the right partners in the planning and delivery of Project STAR.

“The goal is to have the community sharing the challenges in the parish and to suggest solutions to these challenges,” she said, while explaining that when the project finishes, communities would demonstrate ownership of the solutions.

Brown disclosed that community transformation boards are also to be formed and would have the responsibility to drive the transformation work that would be happening on the ground.

“This is where we will see Project STAR being community informed, community led and community owned and we are inviting you to think about serving on this community board,” she appealed to those in attendance.

The seventh step, she said, would be to work with the community to draft a vision board for the communities and ensure that plans being developed would represent that vision, while identifying the opportunities that residents want to see within their spaces. The final step would culminate with a transformation plan.

“Over five to six months, we hope to move from our first step where we map and research to step eight where the community has developed and signed off on a clear plan for social and economic transformation and that we, along with all of you in the wider Savanna-la-Mar community, would be able to start delivering solutions that the community so desperately needs,” she said.

Brown also noted that Project STAR’s four pillar economic transformation strategy would focus on economic outcomes to include employment and entrepreneurship for the parish.

According to her, a new industry is planned for Westmoreland, through Bamboo Bio-products International, which is set to invest US$400 million in a pulp mill to harvest bamboo for pulp for export. Ground breaking for that venture is set for the first half of 2023 near the district of Friendship.

However, she called on residents to position themselves to access the opportunities that the industry will bring. “We will work with the HEART Trust/ NSTA to help train young people and the private sector to help stream people into jobs,” she disclosed.

Brown said data showed that young people in Westmoreland under 24 years old make up 46 per cent of the population with over 21 per cent unemployed and 26 per cent of the working age population engaged in unskilled jobs.