Building back lives and livelihoods-a Southern Grenadines progress report

Editor: Any operation needs some semblance of governance. The last time I attempted to interact with the Ministry of Grenadines Affairs, workers in that office were unaware of its location. The predecessors of King Charles 111 left a District Officer in charge of all operations. Registration of births and deaths were effected, transfer of lands and registration on the tax roll also. The District Officer also performed the role of magistrate. In effect, we had a wide range of government services available to us. Apparently, that was dismantled in favour of a Director of Grenadines Affairs whose scope of work we do not know. We are aware that substantial funds were made available to rebuild our lives and livelihoods. There is no apparent local body that is accountable to us. Ideally funds should be made available to individuals through the financial institutions through whom we could have had accountability. The administrative structure is not in place. These include Revenue Office, Post Office. Police Station, and Health Clinic in Ashton.

The Celena Clouden Hospital still has no radiology service.

Too often, patients must be transported to mainland St. Vincent to access these services. A helicopter is needed to transport emergency cases. Each vessel needs a special room for this purpose also.

In Education, the Principals of Union Island Secondary and Mary Hutchinson Primary are both based on mainland St. Vincent supervising a handful of students. So too is the Sports Officer for the Southern Grenadines. Governance by remote control has taken on a new meaning.

On mainland, when it rains, people put up umbrellas to guide the water away but, in the Grenadines, we set containers to harvest the water. Guttering is an essential part of the roofs and the water directed to storage tanks. The absence of guttering on many roofs makes them incomplete and indicate serious water shortage in the near- and long-term future.

All churches served well as hurricane shelters over the years and deserve low and no interest funding for their rebuilding.

The restoration of the hard court and the Friendly Society Hall are long overdue. Every effort must be made to restore the Society Hall to preserve its history. Perhaps it can be aided to set up full funeral home services to make it self sustaining, in keeping with its original objectives. We are far from any semblance of a sustainable livelihood presently.

Anthony G. Stewart, PhD