Community Groups Praised For Contributing To Zones Of Special Operation Successes

Managing Director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), Omar Sweeney, has praised community groups for playing an integral role in generating the achievements recorded under the Zones of Special Operations (ZOSO) islandwide.

Mr. Sweeney, who also serves as deputy chairman of the ZOSO social intervention committee, told JIS News that dormant community groups that were reactivated and those that had remained active have been largely pivotal to the engagement’s successes.

“While it is that JSIF is [in the communities, we] have been working through these groups which have been acting as proxies, and they have been carrying out a number of interventions in their own right,” he said.

As an example, Mr. Sweeney cited the Mount Salem Community Development Committee (CDC) in St. James which, he said, has implemented “solid” programmes in its own right.

As part of interventions in Mount Salem under the ZOSO, the CDC received training in community safety and governance.

“With the training and support they have gotten, they are able to manage their own [affairs]. They have also secured funding [outside of] JSIF for different projects. Other government agencies, such as the Social Development Commission (SDC) and the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), have also worked with the group to fund programmes. So it is going well,” Mr. Sweeney outlined.

He also told JIS News that JSIF is taking steps to ensure that residents have proper land tenure, noting that “before we leave Mount Salem, we [want to] put persons on the right footing”.

Mount Salem was declared the island’s first ZOSO on September 1, 2017 in response to an upsurge in crime.

As part of the initiative’s build phase, the Mount Salem Police Station is also being rehabilitated and is slated for completion in April.

Other initiatives being undertaken in the community include rehabilitation of the Mount Salem Primary and Infant School, which will be done under JSIF’s Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF), a sub-project funded by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB); and rehabilitation of the community centre with European Union (EU) support.

The Mount Salem ZOSO has also yielded improvements in basic utilities, such as regularisation of water supply for more than 500 residents, in partnership with the National Water Commission (NWC); construction of more than 4,000 metres of roadway; and the installation of more than 1,300 metres of fencing, eliminating over 90 per cent of zinc fencing across the community.

More than 200 care packages were also delivered to residents, in partnership with the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the St James Police Station, and the CDC.

Community enterprises benefited from grant support to carry out training and procure equipment, and parenting support was provided with a Parent Place established in the community.

In addition, more than 200 youth benefited from skills training and livelihood programmes, while solid waste management, vector control and community sanitisation activities are ongoing.