By Petulia Clarke, Staff Reporter
Devon Edwards (at keyboard) helps students at the Rema Reading Centre with the computer. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
THE CHILDREN in the troubled Wilton Gardens (Rema) area of Southern St. Andrew and Denham Town, West Kingston are now smiling more readily.
For the time being, a heavy military presence on Collie Smith Drive, which borders Rema, Trench Town and Denham Town, has ensured a tentative peace, allowing the basic school to high school students to have evening classes taught by Devon 'Ziggy Soul' Beckford and a team of eight volunteers at the Rema Reading Centre in the Hugh Sherlock Complex.
There is less nervousness now no skittish behaviour at the sound of a 'pop' and no tense glances at the teacher.
Even parents and other adults have joined the Monday to Thursday classes.
Gospel singer and director Ziggy Soul, who helped establish the reading programme, says the calm is the work of God.
"It's like Cherry Gardens (Upper St. Andrew)," he said.
According to him, the guns just stopped suddenly sometime ago and there has been no tension since. Children over 100 of them and some 12 adults from Denham Town come into Rema for classes. The soldiers are ensuring that the community remains quiet.
Up to last year, gang rivalry in the general area led to 24 murders in May, the highest figure before the July 7-10 incident in West Kingston. The rivalry was also said to be politically linked. Residents in Rema, Denham Town, and Tivoli Gardens dared not venture across imaginary lines of demarcation. They could either be killed or maimed.
On Tuesday, although a heavy military presence was visible in the shuttered Trench Town, life was normal in Rema.
Ziggy Soul said that the soldiers were providing a buffer along the borderline, allowing his children free access to school. The soldiers and police, he said, are doing a great job.
The head outreach organisation is PARROT (People's Outreach Rema Reform Organisation of Trench Town) and Ziggy Soul is vice-president. PARROT's aim is to reach out to help surrounding communities.
For now, Ziggy and his team of volunteers expand on what the children do in school, and teach adults math, English, comprehension and self-development. All teachers are uncertified and include teenagers and others who have some kind of skill.
The children, who he says come as soon as school is out, use the centre as an activity base for an hour or two, learning about the computer, or reading any of the hundreds of books there.
Those who already know about the computer teach others and those who don't learn the basics.
"It's successful. We hope to see it running like a training centre and a business well-organised," Ziggy Soul said.
Plans are in place to transform the art and craft centre, to take it to a point where art can be made for sale. There are also plans to encourage music production in the studio.
River of Life Church on Cargill Avenue, Kingston provides lunches for the children.
"We're trying to make something out of nothing," Ziggy Soul said. "The children respond fairly well, especially the Denham Town children."
Ziggy Soul and his team need help though, as funding comes almost totally from the gospel singer's pocket.
"We need help," the gospel singer said. "Don't think that we're not here sometimes dying of hunger, we need as much help as possible."
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport has revealed plans to embark on phase three of the development of the Trench Town Cultural Yard this financial year.
Minister of Tourism and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller, while making her contribution to the 2002/2003 Sectoral Debate in Gordon House last week, stated that the Lion of Judah courtyard and a modern kitchen would be constructed during this phase of the development process.
