It was happy volunteers who turned out to lend a hand at Clarendon’s 2016 Labour Day Parish Project at the May Pen West Health Centre. The Clarendon Parish Council led a group of over seventy participants including a number of youth groups, health workers and community members to undertake bushing, painting and drain cleaning work at the facility on Labour Day, Monday, May 23.
The Parish Council decided to focus on the health centre in keeping with this year’s Labour Day theme ‘For Health’s Sake...Keep It Clean’.
Central Clarendon MP, Mike Henry, in whose constituency the facility falls, lamented that the Labour Day works at the health centre was a matter of catching up on the deterioration of the facility over the years.
He however said it was a prudent choice for a project as health remains the most important consideration in the fight against the spread of the Zika Virus.
Prior to the works undertaken at the facility on Monday (May 23) the health centre grounds was overgrown and the site of a major drain which needed cleaning.
May Pen Mayor Councillor Scean Barnswell in thanking the scores of volunteers who participated in last Monday’s project said he was happy with the turnout as the efforts are geared towards responding to the health needs of community members.
Meanwhile the Board of Management of the Clarendon Drop-In Centre, the Parish Council’s new homeless facility, along with a team of Juici volunteers, mental health officers and Parish Council staff continue to ready the drop-in centre to go into limited operations come next Tuesday (May 31) when the Parish Council will be coordinating all daily feedings of the homeless/street people in May Pen from the facility.
The Parish Council will be partnering with the police, the Southern Regional Health Authority’s mental health department and various Community-based organisations and churches in pursuing this new policy to better manage homelessness in the parish.