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It is often said that talk is cheap. However by demolishing social and political barriers, through meaningful dialogue, several inner-city communities have demonstrated that talk can in fact be quite invaluable. Under the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Civic Dialogue for Democratic Governance Project in Jamaica, citizens have realized that meaningful dialogue can change whole communities, resolve conflicts and identify...

Reconstruction work is to be carried out on some 14 schools in Clarendon under the first phase of the Hurricane Ivan Reconstruction programme being carried out by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF). In a JIS News interview on Monday (November 29), Omar Sweeney, Operations Manager at JSIF said that the schools are part of a total of 47 schools...

Minister of Local Government, Community Development and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller has called for the revival of the strong community spirit, which has in the past enabled the country to rise above difficult experiences and challenges. Mrs. Simpson Miller was giving the keynote address at the official launch of the Charles Town multi-purpose complex in Charles Town, Portland on Sunday,...

The first set of completed housing units under the Inner City Housing Project will be available for occupation in February 2005. Director of the Inner City Housing Project, Maurice Anderson, made this disclosure at a recent JIS Think Tank. The Inner City Housing Project (ICHP), which was established some four years ago by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM),...

The St. Elizabeth Parish Council, has established a care centre to provide refuge for street people in the town on Black River. The facility, located at 58 High Street, will be officially opened on Thursday, December 2 and members of the public are being invited to attend. Minister of Local Government, Community Development and Sports, Portia Simpson-Miller will be the...

Students of Crescent Primary School in St. Catherine, their teachers and parents wait anxiously for Labour Day (May 24), when the school will receive road safety improvements, aimed at making the students' journey to and from school a lot safer. On that day, the school, which is the site of the National Labour Day Project, will benefit from a number...

The St. Ann's Bay Community Development Fund (CDF) has disbursed $62.3 million in loans to 598 small business operators over the last decade. In her report at the institution's 10th Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the St. Ann's Bay Baptist Church Hall on April 29, Secretary/Treasurer, Delrose Mott, said that during the ten-year period, 118 persons received $10.9 million for...

The Westmoreland Labour Day Committee is expected to mobilize thousands of citizens and children from across the parish to participate in this year's Labour Day activities, which are geared towards making all roads within Westmoreland safer for the general public. Activities in the parish will be carried out under the national theme 'Road safety first - Avoid the worst' and...

For the last 50 years they have been the eyes of Jamaica's visually impaired and blind. Their motto, "The worst thing is to be born sighted and lack vision" is emblazoned across the building of their headquarters; the first point of contact for passersby of the Jamaica Society for the Blind (JSB), on Old Hope Road in the Corporate Area....

Seventy-nine students from New York's Pace University will take time out of their spring break vacation to participate in a service project at the Whitehall Basic School in Negril, Jamaica, on Tuesday, March 16. University students and staff members will spend the day with Jamaican students and teachers. With assistance from local professionals, they will paint the entire exterior of...

The St. Thomas Fire Division will be embarking on a project to assist needy persons, especially the aged, whose homes have been destroyed by fire and other disasters. Superintendent of the Division, Louiston Gooden, told JIS News that the department would be building one or two-room dwelling houses as well as carrying out repairs to homes of the "most needy"....

Minister of Local Government, Community Development and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller has said that the Government's expenditure on national security could be drastically decreased if communities across Jamaica were better organized and mobilized. Expanding on her point, Minister Simpson Miller said that if people in the communities developed an appreciation of the importance of "community spirit" and learned to understand...