Janine looks to future in town planning

King’s College is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with 13,800 undergraduate students and 5,300 post-graduate students in nine schools of study.

Even though Janine’s first love is science her career choice took a sharp and unexpected turn when she answered an advertisement in the British press for a training programme in planning.

Janine was chosen to participate in this planning initiative and has recently completed ten months as a trainee planning officer at the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Her mother Joan Bacchus-Xavier said her daughter never thought about pursuing planning as a profession. “She always loved science and it simply never occurred to her to pursue planning,” she said.

Janine was featured this month in the Royal Town Planning Institute Journal, a reputable London publication. The story documented the “shortage of planners in the profession” and the poor representation of planners from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds. The article said that “research conducted by the University of Westminister found that only 1.7 percent of planners in England are from BME background compared with 7.9 percent of the population.”

One project in England trying to make a difference in this regard is the Tomorrow’s Planner’s initiative. The initiative is administered by Positive Action Training Highway (PATH) a skills development agency that aims to address under-representation and inequalities of BME groups in management and the professions.

Janine is now benefitting from this programme and believes that she can use this opportunity to make a difference.

“It was while growing up in Trinidad and Tobago that I witnessed first hand the impact of rapid development,” Janine said.

She added that her desire to get into a field where she could make a difference started while she was still in Trinidad.

“From looking at the better developed regions in Trinidad- those that are crime free and flourishing compared to the areas with increased crime principally due to a lack of proper planning and design — I could see a niche in which I could play a positive role,” she told the journal.

Bacchus-Xavier, said her daughter’s decision to pursue a career in planning was noteworthy since it was a vitally important aspect of any developing country yet virtually ignored as a course of study by young people.

“Young people are not going into planning because it has rarely been presented to them as an option,” she said.

She saw this was critical in light of the numerous developments taking place in Trinidad including the redevelopment plans for East Port-of-Spain and the Government’s housing thrust.

Janine echoes her mother’s concerns in the journal interview: “Planning has to get down to the grassroots through schools. It should be seen as a valuable career choice in line with becoming a lawyer or an accountant.”