Feature Adress at Sod-turning Ceremony Bon Air South Community Centre

Presented by:

Dr. the Honourable Nyan Gadsby-Dolly

Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts

It is a wonderful thing to be here today. Another community, another sod-turning, another time and everyone we have attended, every Member of Parliament, every councillor, every resident has expressed joy at having arrive at this day, where we officially mark the construction of a community centre.

I will tell you why we go through the effort of having a sod-turning. What it does, it puts a footprint in the sand at this point in time where the Ministry in partnership with UdeCOTT, we say to you, we intend to build this centre and it puts some pressure on us, as a Ministry and on UdeCOTT as a state enterprise as to ensure that having made such a public declaration to keep our word to deliver to you this centre on time and within budget.

Every community expresses the need for a community centre. Every community knows what a centre can mean to the development of the community. I do not need to go over it because your Member of Parliament through Chairman Leacock expressed it so well. This is a place where communities gather, this is a place where the Ministry can interact with the community with respect to all the skill training courses that are offered. This is a centre where young can meet old, where young can meet young and transfer knowledge information. There is no limit to how a community centre can serve a community.

Every time we embarked on a new centre, it is with joy that we do it as well at the Ministry because we know as the Ministry charged with community development how that centre will intersect with our desire to make your community better and to influence your quality of life.

And so, we are glad to be here today, to say to you that we intent to complete your community centre. We are at the point where we can start working very soon on your centre. We look forward to coming back in a reasonable period of time where we will celebrate then, not on the outside with the generators and so on, but we will be in your very own centre.

I know that quite a number of you may have been acquainted with some of the new centres that are being built and as you can see there is a representation of what your two-storey centre will look like and I am certain that if you have been inside any of these new centres, then you are greatly anticipating walking through here and into a centre that looks like that and delivers to you the amenities that will allow you so much scope for building your community.

And so, we at the Ministry are excited with you and of course UdeCOTT is there fighting to go ahead and deliver this centre to you.  I want to join with the Chairman as well as your Member of Parliament in endorsing the care and maintenance of the centre. At the Ministry, we stand ready and we will be partnering with you to ensure that a centre of this size with all these amenities that the centre is maintained the way it should be, so that, not only us sitting here will see it built but those coming in the future will have the opportunity to enjoy a centre that offers them just as much as it offers you at the time of building. At the Ministry we will be ensuring that we play that important oversight role and that supportive role to help all of the residents take care of their centre.

We look forward to seeing this centre built, we look forward to opening it with you and an opening is always a grand event and I am sure the Village council already has their ideas what they want to do and how they want to do it and we look forward to being a partner with you, with your member of parliament, your councillor to ensure that this centre delivers to you all of the potential it has to deliver.

God bless you, God bless the work that is about to start on this centre and we look forward to the benefits we will reap from it in the near future.