Maroons urged to support development of their communities

MAROON CHIEF Richard Currie has urged former residents of Maroon communities, which he termed the ‘land of look behind’, to consider helping others when they leave. He was speaking at the Quickstep Community Development Committee (QCDC) meeting held at the Quickstep Primary School in St Elizabeth recently.

“We are in the land of look behind and often enough, when people leave this community they don’t look behind,” Currie said.

His comments followed a presentation by founder of international charity Pencils4Kids, Randy Griffiths, who gave a preview of the layout of the Quickstep Sports Complex, a multimillion-dollar project set to commence in 2024.

Griffiths, a former resident, has spent the last several years through Pencils4Kids and with the help of donors, raising millions to inject in the development of the Quickstep community.

In the last five years the group has built a school, a library, sponsored a school bus, built a garage, full sponsorship of students education and started a garden and breakfast feeding programme for students.

The P4K groups’ mission trip to Jamaica in December will see the construction of a playground for the newly built basic school.

Currie praised Griffiths’ efforts in helping to ensure that Maroon communities are not left out of accessing social and infrastructural developments.

“Randy has changed that because it’s very common and typical in many of the Maroon communities because there are so many things lacking – basic infrastructure, road, light, water, Internet – and these are the things that are essential in today’s world,” Currie said.

Currie, who is in his first stint as Maroon chief, said while the Maroons do not want to be left behind, they do not want to lose their identity.

“We want to move forward ... But we want to do so not absconding from our culture and our identity. There are elements of that that we have worked together – your mom would have worked together to preserve – and we are proud of that,” he said.

Currie said it was these principles that fostered the will to give back and inspire a whole new generation in the Pencils4Kids team.

FULL SUPPORT

The Maroon chief said there are major plans in the pipeline in areas of farming and he wants Quickstep to feature in those agriculture developments.

He offered the full support of the Accompong Town Maroons, remarking that unity could see these communities moving to achieve their objectives.

Griffiths joined him in the call for unity, and urged residents to pool together and not wait for political help.

He said, “Let’s get together as a team, a unit and let this thing work. It can’t work with one person going left and another person going right ... unity is strength and we need that in this community.”

Griffiths reminded the residents that as a result of their unity and advocacy for some 10 years, the deep rural community was able to get Internet access recently.

“Before me dead, hopefully I have longevity, I want this to happen, more than this to happen. We need hospital, we need clinic, all these things,” he said of the sports complex plans and other developments.

Community development officer for the parish, Claudine Beckford-Mitchell, encouraged the community to meet regularly and uphold the principles of the QCDC constitution.

She lauded the QCDC as one of the most vibrant groups in Balaclava, and which had managed to create their own proposals.

“This group is one of the only groups that worked without an officer for almost a year,” Beckford-Mitchell said, adding that there are only 32 active groups out of 600 on record.