Hackett-Codrington: Department to expand range

The Community Development Department will be widening its scope in terms of its programming, to bring on stream some new initiatives that address key issues such as non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and domestic violence, that are seriously affecting local communities.

 

Chief Community Development Officer, Patricia Hackett-Codrington revealed the above, as she spoke with The Barbados Advocate this week.

 

“The Community Development Department does two sets of programming, one is coming out of the community, so the community will make a request for things that they want to do – and we will put those programmes in place in terms of skills training – and then we, from the top, will determine if we see a specific need in the community and we will introduce those programmes to meet the needs that we have identified as practitioners,” the chief explained.

 

“So we do the skills training programmes which we call our ‘Community Impact Programmes’ and then there are the major department programmes which we have, ‘Dance Fest’, ‘IT for Teens,’” she added.

 

“We also have HIV committees in a number of communities and we are revamping those committees to bring on board things like NCDs, because we are having some serious problems around NCDs. We also want to bring programmes around domestic violence and other social issues, which (negatively) affect the community. So we are working to broaden our scope, to ensure that our work will not only be known in the centres as “skills training”, but also coming out from our needs, that we identify other programmes to help make the community a safe and healthy one,” Hackett-Codrington pointed out.

 

The Department will also be celebrating 45 years of existence this year, she noted, adding that there are a number of activities planned to celebrate this mark of achievement.

 

“We are in our 45th year as a state department, so we are having a number of activities to mark the 45th anniversary celebrations. We had a Community Day last Saturday at St. Marks in
St. Philip, and we are going to have a number of others as well. 

 

“We are having inter-centre games, we are going to have a church service – so there are a number of things that we are going to do to mark our 45th anniversary. This is a very hectic year for us,” she said.

 

“We have a number of celebrations, ten years of ‘Dance Fest’, 15 years of ‘Community Technology Programming in the Community’, 45 years as a Department and of course 50 years as a country,” the Chief Community Development Officer concluded. (RSM)