Dear Editor,
I have been involved in community work for all my adult life dating back to the ʼ70s. I have been residing at Nismes for almost twenty-five years, during which period I have tried my utmost to play a meaningful role in the overall upliftment of the villages of Bagotville and Nismes.
There have been many start-ups, but the enthusiasm soon withered away and the various groups/organisations either died or merely limped along. This has resulted in very many capable and knowledgeable individuals giving up hope, with others, such as the writer, clinging on hoping for an elixir to effectuate a renewal.
That elixir was administered on Monday, May 11, and the miraculous effects were visibly demonstrated on Sunday, June, 7, with a profound manifestation of love, unity, togetherness, co-operation – genuine old-time village life. I am referring to the massive clean-up campaign by the residents of these two villages.
Even though I did not join in from the commencement, I could have felt the immense love, enormous satisfaction and prodigious sense of pride etched on the faces of all involved. They were working, but to them it was pure, unvarnished, unadulterated joy. This exercise is slated to be continued next Sunday, June, 14.
This outpouring of intense, positive emotion would have been impossible prior to May 11. I, however, would like to exhort the residents of Bagotville and Nismes to continue to pursue this same spirit of unity, neighbourliness and mutual respect in all other aspects of community development. It has been said that when you have reached the summit of a mountain, you just do not descend but you instead look for a more challenging one to conquer.
It is my intention to agitate for a group of about, say, twelve persons to be elected from amongst the current residents who are engaged in the current clean-up exercise to form a sort of a Bagotville-Nismes development committee to look in areas such as (but not limited to) :-
1) ensuring that the La Grange/Nismes NDC work for and with us, and not for La Grange only;
2) obtaining a proper playground for our youths;
3) engaging the relevant authorities with a view to ascertaining the time-line for the completion of the Bagotville koker; embarking on a holistic drainage programme for Bagotville so that it can once again become a thriving farming community; significantly improving the roads in David Road and Nismes Old Road; ensuring that the construction of the recently built wharf at Nismes has not compromised the sea defences and the drainage canals; transforming the Bagotville Community Centre into an edifice that is worthy of, and relevant to the 21st century; also, removing the monstrosities that slumber on the northern section of the entrance.
For twenty-three years the villages of Bagotville and Nismes were mistreated by the PPP/C, and we, the residents, have to organize ourselves so that we may improve ourselves and our communities.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Scotland