JLP councillor -candidate for the retreat Division in St Mary, Krystal Lee as well as members of Generation 2000 (G2K) embarked on planting fruit trees and vegetable throughout the Retreat Division for Labour Day.
It was an all green affair in Western St. Mary, as the councillor-caretaker supervised other activities to include the repair of public buildings, community welcome signs, bushing of roadways and the placement of garbage bins. Ms. Lee commented that it was imperative that “we as the next generation take seriously our responsibility to care for and maintain our natural environment and encourage our people to improve on the level of local production and consumption of locally grown food in our country.” She noted that she intends to make it one of her areas of priority should she be elected as councillor in the upcoming Local Government Elections.
The councillor-caretaker and members of her team also worked with a number of educational institutions to establish urban fruit and vegetable gardens, serving the dual purpose of providing fruits and vegetables for consumption, as well as imparting to the youngsters attending these institutions the importance of caring for their environment and planting their own source of food.
The second phase of the planned Labour Day activities included; the improvement of roadways, the repairing of the roof and painting of the postal agency in Richard’s Pen, the painting of the Stewart Mountain community sign and cutting of the area and the clearing of the land at the Cascade playing field, which is the first step towards its renovation. She was also able to assist in other projects throughout communities in various ways. A number of disposal bins were placed at key locations throughout the division to ensure that the residents in these areas have ready and accessible points to dispose of their waste as opposed to throwing it in nearby bushes and gullies.
The young politician has been a consistent advocate for proper waste management and sustainable development. This is represented in her manifesto of plans to develop the division. The manifesto was presented at her annual divisional conference last year. She noted that the NSWMA has failed in its responsibility to the parish in its previous administration. She added that “It is evident that there were no proper fleet management and maintenance structure in place for the trucks. We now have only two (2) functioning trucks in the Parish of St. Mary and this is an island wide problem. This did not happen since February.”
She also mentioned that with the allocated funds in the Ministry of Local Government to purchase new trucks to add to the fleet, an efficient maintenance schedule, among other key changes in the operations and management that is underway, there will be great improvements in the service delivery of the agency in the division and parish at large.
Ms. Lee noted further that the planting of fruit trees and communities generally producing their own food, if implemented on a wide scale would represent the sort of cultural shift that would provide for a healthier population as well as one less dependent on imports.Some of the schools targeted by way of this initiative were the Three Hills Primary School, Newstead Primary and Assembly of the First Born Basic School.
St. Mary and the Retreat division in particular, have been noted by the councillor-caretaker as a region with a rich and diverse ecosystem that if developed, properly managed and maintained can be the source of revenue and employment particularly for the youth in the division.
