More active participation of youth in National Day of Community Service

Dominicans participate in a past National Day of Community Service
Dominicans participate in a past National Day of Community Service

Acting Local Government Commissioner, Glenroy Toussaint has revealed that over the years there has been an increase in the participation of young people during National Day of Community Service (Jounen Koudmen).

He made that announcement while addressing the official launching ceremony of Independence Celebrations 2016 held the Government Information Service (GIS) office in Bath Estate on Wednesday.

This activity is being observed for well over three decades and the objective is to encourage the public to get actively involved in community enhancement.

According to Toussaint, preparations began as early as June 2016 and since then the government have received 164 project applications, totaling to $212,000.

“We have seen an increase and that is mainly among the young people,” he said. “I am not sure, maybe they have to culminate with the schools asking the children to do some part of it, but we have seen increase participation. We really have active involvement of persons, we are seeing that among the youth…in some areas the youth are the first set of people that are out there waiting to work and that is excellent. It means, therefore, you have an event that will be sustained once it’s taken by our young people.”

In fact, one of the complaints being heard, he said,  and government has sought to explain to the public is that many persons are complaining that they do not have enough material for the day, “but mindful of the fact that we have to give each and every community.”

“We have to understand that gone are the days when there were no mixers, so everybody would do the shoveling of the concrete, now with two mixers, with 40 bags of cement within an hour or two you’ve covered that,” Toussaint explained.

Additionally, he said, reports received are that, in some projects as many as 60 to 75 people are engaged on a project, “that’s a lot of people to work on one project and not withstanding that we have also encouraged people projects that you have been approved there are other things you can do in your community.”

“You can clean your yard, you can clean the community, you can do something,” he noted.

Toussaint went on to say that in addition to the $200,000 that was received for National Day of Community Service an allocation of $100,000 was also received for the prices for the various cultural finals and semi finals, as well as the two Market Days with a Difference to be held in Portsmouth and Marigot.

“Because we have to offer the individuals and the groups’ monetary prices for first, second and third, and that in itself helps in encouraging the individuals and groups,” he stated.

Meantime; Minister for Social Services, Family and Gender Affairs, Catherine Daniel said with the local government department last year’s Independence Celebrations budget was in the region of over $170,000.

“We had a greater significance in the increase of the budget for the community day of service [Jounen Koudmen], because last year it was $177,000 and this year it is rounded off to $200,000 so there has been a significant increase,” Daniel explained. “People submitted projects, the monies is already allocated, they have the $200,000, but when they got the projects and they estimated or they calculated how much they would have to spend on those submitted it would be in the region of $212,000, but we only have $200,000, but that is $200,000 from a lesser amount of $177,000 from last year’s Independence, so it’s a significant increase in that area.”

Daniel said they now have to budget within that budget, and so $154,000 was budgeted and the rest will go to transportation.”

National Day of Community Service will take place on November 4th.

Copyright 2012 Dominica News Online, DURAVISION INC. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.

Disclaimer: The comments posted do not necessarily reflect the views of DominicaNewsOnline.com and its parent company or any individual staff member. All comments are posted subject to approval by DominicaNewsOnline.com. We never censor based on political or ideological points of view, but we do try to maintain a sensible balance between free speech and responsible moderating.

We will delete comments that:

  • contain any material which violates or infringes the rights of any person, are defamatory or harassing or are purely ad hominem attacks
  • a reasonable person would consider abusive or profane
  • contain material which violates or encourages others to violate any applicable law
  • promote prejudice or prejudicial hatred of any kind
  • refer to people arrested or charged with a crime as though they had been found guilty
  • contain links to "chain letters", pornographic or obscene movies or graphic images
  • are off-topic and/or excessively long

See our full comment/user policy/agreement.

Post a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

:) :-D :wink: :( 8-O :lol: :-| :cry: 8) :-? :-P :-x :?: :oops: :twisted: :mrgreen: more »

 characters available