Fifteen youths from Rasville, Roxanne Burnham Gardens will be employed under the Ministry of Agriculture’s Community Enhancement Programme to clear their community’s drains and canals that have been neglected by the Mayor and City Council.
The Government Information Agency (GINA) said in a press release that this decision came about when Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud met with youths and residents in Rasville on Friday following an invitation to examine the needs of the Georgetown community.
Minister Persaud also encouraged youths in the community to be part of the Government’s One Laptop Per Family Project, (OLPF), small agriculture ventures for which the Ministry of Agriculture will provide support and other government initiatives to aid in community development and youth empowerment.
The release noted that the Ministry of Agriculture’s Community Enhancement Development Programme employs persons who work in their communities to assist in terms of drainage enhancement.
This has significantly aided in the transformation of communities countrywide and to date approximately 3,000 enhancement workers have been employed.
The ministry has employed over 150 such persons within Georgetown.
Persaud said that there are pockets in some areas and government cannot turn a blind eye to their development, and it was in the context of bettering Rasville that he was visiting the area to look at how the government can work with the young people since one of its main interests is youth development and examining how this aspect can be developed.
He said the other reason is that his ministry does a lot of major drainage projects in agricultural areas across the coast and Georgetown and it has a programme of supporting the City Council in terms of improving and enhancing drainage.
