The President’s Grounds

The recent announcement that the treatment of psychiatric patients would be shifted from the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital to a soon to be constructed hospital, effectively clears the way for Government to establish a sporting complex on the extensive lands of the Psychiatric Hospital, a move which would benefit residents of the St Ann’s/Cascade areas even as it allows for the freeing of the President’s Grounds for expansion of the area now occupied by the Prime Minister’s residence.

In turn, the expansion of what would be properly the Prime Minister’s grounds would provide the area with much needed and greater security. There is undoubtedly a need, as the St Ann’s/Cascade/Hololo Community Group has advocated and continues to advocate, for playing fields for the youths of the districts, and the utilisation of the grounds of the existing location of the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital will provide the necessary space for several sporting pursuits at the same time.

Should Government decide to allocate a not insignificant portion of the considerable grounds of the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital for sports, and with this the development of the area’s young people, it should set up a body under the direction, though not overt control, of the Ministry of Sports or the San Juan Laventille Regional Corporation for the running of any arrangement there for sports. In addition, it should seek to encourage officials of the Superstar Rangers and the Northern Rugby Club to be a part of the management structure. The children of lower income families, who may feel diplomatically shut out by the tacit allocation of use of the President’s Grounds by the Superstar Rangers and the Northern Rugby Club will be more at home in an environment in which their communities are, demonstrably, a part.

I have read and/or heard in the print and electronic media protestations of concern that should the use of President’s Grounds be denied to the young people of St Ann’s and Cascade there could be an increase in crime and violence. It is an extreme position because the media photographs and film clips of those who today regularly access the President’s Grounds do not suggest this.

Nonetheless, since the protestations clearly can not and do not apply to those who are portrayed in the media as availing themselves of the opportunity to use the President’s Grounds, then the fears, whether or not justified, are perhaps directed to other sections of the St Ann’s/Cascade area.

Questions arise as they must: Are these other youths being targeted and how is the targeting being done? Is there a marketing strategy in place designed to win over young people of lower income families? And by this I do not mean a relative handful, but rather the broad mass of children, who in heightened manner are sad products of the embittered past. I have raised the issue of marketing. Several weeks ago a vehicle with a loudspeaker went through, largely, the middle and upper middle income areas of St Ann’s promoting the holding that evening of a crucial meeting of the St Ann’s/Cascade/Hololo Community Group. When it neared a squatters’ area it turned around, an unspoken rejection, however unwittingly, of the need to have members of at least a few of the underprivileged families attend. But I have strayed.

There needs to be a shift of focus, a clear appreciation that the real battle can not and must not be seen as, for the use of the President’s Grounds, per se, but for ample space in which the youths, deprived and otherwise, would have an opportunity in which to exercise, to indulge in sporting activities. It is a need to be filled, a need that can be filled. The grounds of the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital, stretching for scores of acres on end, is ideal. And with the demolition of the hospital’s buildings, relics all of a sad, misunderstood past there will be provided the last of the truly great open spaces in and around the capital city. The lands are within relatively easy reach of literally thousands of upper, middle and lower income children and their families.

Our young people are our nation’s future. Here is an ideal opportunity for the St Ann’s/Cascade/Hololo Community Group to urge on Government, to lobby Government, to market to Government the need to open up the grounds of the Psychiatric Hospital when it deshifts psychiatric care and closes down the institution. What matters until the setting of the sun is what we can do for our nation’s youth. How long a relatively select group, admittedly now expanded to embrace the less fortunate, had virtual control of the use of the President’s Grounds must not be seen as more important than that of reaching out to the broad mass of the underprivileged. They are the ones who matter, who must be seen to matter. Help them and you help yourselves and in the medium and long term the nation itself.