Member of Parliament for St. Augustine, Khadijah Ameen, says she is working in her constituency to ensure that youth are not forgotten.
Speaking on Saturday at a Christmas treat for children of her constituency, she notes that there are urgent areas of care that will be dealt with to ensure that no young person is left behind by the system.
“So one of the critical areas is crime and our young people, unemployment, and the social situation. So we have started working with the TTPS, the Hand-in-Hand initiative, on areas such as the Train Line, Dookie Singh area, and we are expanding to Macoya Settlement, Monty Grant, Oropune Gardens, and the areas that they tell us are the at-risk areas, where we’re working with our young people to ensure that school dropouts, and so on, are not lost.”
She says she is also working with all of the schools in the constituency and the Minister of Education, helping in that area.
She notes that her constituents and the regional corporation have been very helpful and responsive when it comes to other matters, such as infrastructure.
One matter that she notes will need addressing with urgency is that of how farmers are treated in her constituency.
“We have areas to be regularised, squatters who are residential, as well as farmers who have been on agricultural lands, practising agriculture, whose leases have expired and were not renewed by the last government. So we are working with the Minister of Agriculture on that, because St. Augustine is a food basket — the entire area over the highway, south of the Churchill Roosevelt Highway — and, of course, flooding. Flooding is an issue. In terms of our flood reduction, it is a nationwide exercise.”