Nekeisha Burchell – the Garlands girl vying to make South St James strong
Published:Thursday | August 17, 2023 | 12:10 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
NEKEISHA BURCHELL, deputy general secretary of the People’s National Party [PNP], is full of pride and loyalty for her native Garlands community in St James. She aims to put that patriotism into action in her bid to become South St James’ next member of parliament (MP).
Burchell also serves as the PNP’s director of communications, and personified her love for her home community in vibrant and musical fashion on Sunday, when she was introduced as the PNP’s standard-bearer for South St James during its constituency conference at the Anchovy High School in Anchovy, St James. The occasion also featured rhythmic performances by dancehall giants Popcaan and Shane O.
“I am so proud of my Garlands roots, and everywhere I go, I represent Garlands proudly, and now I represent South St James proudly. That pride was instilled in me by the community that I lived in, as in that community, we had common unity and everybody was almost on the same page,” said Burchell.
“When I think of South St James, I do not think about a constituency; I think about a huge community. Somehow, we feel like kinsfolk, like we are one big family,” Burchell added.
That sense of family and togetherness is one which Burchell, a past student of the Garlands Primary School, Mt Alvernia High School, and University of the West Indies, wants to revive across the constituency. This is part of her ongoing ‘South Strong’ campaign, in order to rekindle the nostalgia of her younger days when everyone in the Garlands community knew and cared for everyone else.
“In that community, we had common unity, everybody was almost on the same page, and if I was going home late from school and the bus leave me a road, somebody would take me home to my parents and I’d be safe. That’s the community I grew up in, where if mi hungry, and we don’t have anything at home, someone will be sending a hand of banana, piece of yam or cocoa, some vegetables, or a tin mackerel,” Burchell recalled, slipping into patois.
“South St James was the place where you could feel that if you go to foreign or town, and things get hot, you can come home because it’s safe. What gunshot doing in South St James? People a get gunshot and nobody nah talk, nobody never see a who? That don’t sound like South St James. That common unity has broken down in our community and we have to fix that,” she continued.
Burchell, who also graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science, joined the PNP secretariat in 2009, working as an assistant to Peter Bunting, the current Opposition spokesman on national security.
Her efforts played a key role in the party’s victory in the 2011 general election, and during the party’s time in power, she was one of the conceptualisers for the Ministry of National Security’s Unite for Change anti-crime initiative.
During the upcoming general election, she will be challenging the Jamaica Labour Party’s Homer Davis, state minister in the Office of the Prime Minister – West, and the current MP for South St James, to determine which of them will win the seat.
Part of Burchell’s campaign plan, which she outlined during Sunday’s meeting, will include a focus on reviving agricultural development in South St James and creating educational opportunities for the constituency’s young people.
“I am not focusing on what is wrong about us, because there is enough that is wrong. But there is even more that is strong about South St James that we can focus on that will take us to the sustainable level that we want to go to. The sustainable plan that I have in mind for our South St James is built on the three Ps: our people, our products, and our pride,” said Burchell.
“South St James deserves its own college for the students … our children need to have a college in their constituency that they can go to and learn [from], so we want to invest in our people in our community, and we are going to resuscitate the Branch Texas College when the time comes,” she added.
Branch Texas is a former learning institution in the Maldon area which was closed in 1964.
“We are going to focus on the young people, because there is no future without them. We need to start having some agro-processing plants in South St James where we peel the pines for ourselves and we slice it up and sell it for ourselves.”