‘La Horquetta, a community with a lot of potential’

Newsday begins its community series today.

We will highlight TT’s often forgotten people who are making a difference and the communities in which they live.

Carol Quash

THE escalation of violent crime in Trinidad and Tobago has left communities mentally and emotionally scarred – some more than others – with people fearing to venture into what have been deemed at-risk areas.

But while the view from the outside may be one of doom and gloom, people from in these communities have other stories to tell – stories of promise and projections, of silver linings amid dark, ominous clouds.

“La Horquetta is a community with a lot of potential,” resident and standard two teacher at La Horquetta South Government Primary School Rhonda Jones told Newsday on March 12, as she sat with her students in the noisy schoolyard during their lunch break.

Jones, a 2024 Hummingbird Silver medal recipient for Community Service and Sports and Trinidad and Tobago United Teachers’ Association’s Frank B Seepersad Memorial Award for Teacher of the Year 2019, is well-known throughout the community for the positive work she does there and the motherly stance she takes with the young.

“I came to live here when I was 16 while attending Malick Senior Comprehensive. Now I’m 57; I’ve lived my life here, basically,” and has since been fiercely advocating for the betterment of the community, with a special focus on the young people, and in a holistic way.

Jones is always planning team-building activities, such as the Easter Sunday sports day, which sees the entire community come out to support.

“We have a march-past, obstacle races, novelty races; the community really comes together for that event.”

Then there are events like pageants, calypso shows, African drumming classes, and pan classes at the panyard.

“Right now I have 11 boys learning African drumming, with four of them on the autism spectrum...

“I do cultural stuff to get them engaged. The girls are doing a dance that I am choreographing,” she chuckled.

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I’ve taken a few cultural courses at UWI, so I think I have an idea of what I’m doing.

And then there is the La Horquetta Pan Groove (LHPG), founded by the Robinson brothers, who moved to the community when they were in their teens.

“The band started with people from various bands in Port of Spain who were from Phase Five and different parts of the country,” Kirt Robinson said of the LHPG when Newsday visited the panyard.

“My brother (Roger) made miniature pans you could play,” until, with the assistance of someone who worked off-shore, he got drums to make standardised-sized pans.

“We used to practise under the street light,” and eventually, when neighbours started to complain about the noise and the pans hampering easy movement on the street, they were allowed to use a shed that was owned by a cricket club.

“We started in 1989. Rhonda Jones was one of our first female players.

“We formed a little executive and went into the Panorama and came sixth in the final.”

The community was always good to the band, but that didn’t exempt it from experiencing challenging times.

“We got lights from Miss Debra and even after she migrated, we still got the cord running across from her house to the shed.

“During 1993 and 1998 the band went through some difficult times because we were unsponsored.

“What saved this band always, up to today, is our raw talent.”

Under the People’s Partnership government, LHPG eventually got a permanent home in the same spot it had occupied for years.

“They put up a building, and when they painted around the panyard, it was yellow too nah,” Robinson laughed.

The band went on to win a number of titles in the Small Conventional Band category, but as far as Robinson is concerned, winning titles is just part of what LHPG does.

Robinson also runs a pan school on the compound – La Horquetta Pan Academy, and his students get pans cheaper price than the market price.

“We manufacture and tune pans here, and we produce young pan makers and tuners.

“Right around here has a lot of raw talent. When they leave here they can excel in what they learned here.

“Pan has a lot more than Panorama; it is an industry,” as things like pan stands mean work for welders and fabricators.

“There is a whole industry and we need to do our own personal investments.”

He said although LHPG has accomplished a lot it is still not where it is supposed to be.

“Right now we need funding to pay teachers for the academy because I can’t do everything.”

Among its objectives is to give the young people of La Horquetta an opportunity to get involved in something productive – something that will get them off the streets. At its peak, he said, 95 per cent of the players were from La Horquetta. Now, many players are from outside the community and he sees a need to encourage the young people in the community to get involved in the programmes offered “because they are going astray.”

He and the other band members are committed to finding ways to get more young people involved in what goes on in the panyard.

“I don’t like to dwell on the problem, I like a solution.”

La Horquetta comprises seven phases as well as Greenvale Park. The community has its own swimming pool, and a community centre and on November 26, 2024, its new $42 million public library was officially opened.

The library is equipped with four retail spaces, two multi-functional rooms, a 200-seat amphitheatre and children’s and adult libraries fitted with computer stations, books and games.

Jones said it has since been put to good use with the hosting of workshops and various educational events.

“But there is still work to be done to get it where it is supposed to be.”

“I try to get people to go there, but it’s not being utilised in the way that it should be at this time for the money that was spent.

“As it is right now, the children’s section needs to be developed because it is really not fair to those who are in form five coming to study and the younger children are there distracting them.”

Also, she said, there is a need for more and a wider variety of books.

“It makes no sense for me to go to ask for a book in my field, which is culture, and I’m told to go to another library.”

The pool, she said, has fostered several physical activities – competitive and recreational.

“I was learning to swim before covid19. My children learned to swim in that pool.”

But now, the erratic water schedule has put a damper on its use.

“Because of how the water is scheduled; it’s irregular.

“My suggestion is that they invest in more tanks so the pool can be used…

“And they want to build another pool in Phase 2. I am not in agreement with that because this one needs to be maintained and it’s not being done. There is no sense building another right now.”

And with the general elections set for April 28, Jones said she is in demand by many factions of the political divide.

“Left want Rhonda Jones, right want Rhonda Jones and might be east and west too.

“But I keep telling people, who I vote for is my personal choice, so if I decide to go left or right, it’s my choice.

“I tell you, this election will be really interesting.

“But at the end of the day, Foster Cummings is still the MP for La Horquetta/Talparo and Minister of Youth Development and National Service, so if there is an event he will be invited; if I need something, I’m going to go see him.”

Jones said when it comes to her community, she is as intrepid as they come and will stand up to the powers that be to protect it.

“ I had to fall out with everybody,” from residents to government-appointed officials who come to do work in La Horquetta.

“There was a tamarind tree that has been a landmark in La Horquetta for over 30 years. They didn’t have to butcher it when they were building the library; they could have trimmed it.

“It was a source of income for some people and it was laden when they cut it down.

“All of them got it – from the La Horquetta men who were hired to cut it down, to Udecott chairman Noel Garcia.

“That tree had so many stories, so much history. Plus we have to hold on to the green in the community. We have become a concrete jungle.”

She is extremely concerned about the development of a turf war in her community, fuelled by things that are meant to build up the community.

“The turf thing they are trying to create here, even with the SoE I haven’t been seeing anything different.”

But even these challenges don’t prevent her from doing the work she believes she was born to do.

“I’m looking forward to starting a programme for boys called SOS – Save our Sons. Because while buildings and pools are nice, we have to study human resources. We must have a plan.

“I always say, a minister will come and minister will go, but we as the community, residents in La Horquetta, we have to learn to live together. We have to learn to respect each other.

“So I hope that whoever comes in here after April 28 will remember the human resources.