Baynes wants Tobago's community centres up and running

As empowering communities remains high on the THA’s Division of Community Development, Youth Development and Sport agenda, Secretary of Terance Baynes has outlined some of the plans.

Speaking at last Wednesday’s virtual post-Executive Council media briefing, Baynes said assessments have been ongoing within the various communities across the island.

He said the plan is to make all community centres readily available to members of the community,

“In a lot of the communities, there is need for tremendous work – upgrade works. Some areas need brand new facilities and so on. We find that in some of the more recent facilities, the multi-purpose facilities, some of the work has been haphazard.”

He added: “In terms of the usage, the communities are robbed of usage because in some cases, it seems as if the materials that was used was not appropriate because of the location of some of these facilities. The site themselves have some construction issues and so on. We have to spend a lot of money in trying to refurbish some of these facilities.”

He also pointed out that some community centres are in desperate need of attention.

“We have to try our best to move on this expeditiously. We have some priority areas, Les Coteaux, that’s one of the main ones; Glamorgan, we’re trying to give some attention there; the centre in Bacolet as well is a priority, and then there are some others that need attention. So we’ll be doing those things post-haste so...the communities can have usage."

Additionally, he said there has been a challenge regarding access to these facilities.

“We also have to explore regularising the operation of community centres across the island. We have had a perennial problem with centres, whether not in use at all or difficulty with keys, who have access, and because we are moving towards empowering our communities, these facilities will become of paramount importance to the various areas that they are found.”