First Peoples allocated $6.9m to develop Heritage Village

The First Peoples have been allocated $6,900,000 for development of their Heritage Village, upgrade of the administrative buildings and other works.

Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Dr Rai Ragbir said the amount was impressive and asked Sport and Community Development Minister Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis what was planned for public awareness and development initiatives.

Cudjoe-Lewis said the figure focused on a master plan the ministry has been working on with the First Peoples in Arima.

“They are building a heritage village and we’ve been working with them, not only in developing the master plan but also in getting the location, the venue ready to build out there. We did slope stabilisation last year and we are going to be doing more this year, along with roadways and retaining walls, and finalising the master plan.

“They have big plans for that area. They’re talking about a cassava factory, the commencement of a pyramidal square works, and box drains, catch pits, etc. So they’re building out a full heritage site and tourism site.”

Cudjoe-Lewis said 92 in-person and 19 online short skills courses were implemented over five months in the last fiscal year, at a cost of $2,210,500. She said a total of 6,130 people registered and have benefited from the programme and a total of 4,003 people completed it.

She said the ministry also delivered training in good governance through five online sessions and 16 in-person sessions.

Addressing the issue of late payment of Best Village prizes raised by Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee, Cudjoe-Lewis said the ministry was working to improve the process.

“The bulk of the BV competition takes place in August/September, when we’re wrapping up for budget. If we’re not able to move swiftly and get it out before September 15, many times the La Reine Rive would be on September 4, and the MoF gives us a cut-off point of September 15. It’s a challenge to move it in a couple of days.

“What we can do...we can pull up some of the activities earlier in the year to allow the finals to be earlier. But when we do it that way, we lose out sometimes on the schoolchildren participating, and we had a lot of fifth- or sixth-formers this year, so we have to balance it. We want the youth involved, but they don’t participate as much when we have activities during the school year, because they’re also preparing for end of year.”

Cudjoe-Lewis said the allocation for the community sporting programme was to support the establishment of the sporting schools programme, which began in April 2024.

“We did a pilot project to make sure it would run smoothly. Sport in schools is usually carried out by the Ministry of Education.

"We’ve trained 34 coaches to be placed in schools, working with 90-100 primary schools and 34 secondary schools in TT. We hope we get more at mid-term.”

Cudjoe-Lewis said the ministry is working with Udecott on upgrading the Manny Ramjohn Stadium, with a report expected on October 17.