Fa­ther Matthew D’Here­aux, Ro­man Catholic priest in the Gon­za­les com­mu­ni­ty, will move to re­open the home­work cen­tre as he bat­tles against the crim­i­nal­i­ty that has plagued east Port-of-Spain and the neg­a­tive stereo­type at­tached to the area.

Gon­za­les is a high-risk com­mu­ni­ty in East Port of Spain, which has gar­nered the rep­u­ta­tion as a hot spot for gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence.

The home­work cen­tre, which is part of Com­mu­ni­ty In­ter­ven­tion for Trans­for­ma­tion and Em­pow­er­ment (CIT+E), a pas­toral re­sponse of the Ro­man Catholic Church. When the home­work cen­tre was opened in 2019, CIT+E worked to­wards the trans­for­ma­tion of the young peo­ple in the Gon­za­les com­mu­ni­ty.

COVID-19 put ac­tiv­i­ties on hold, but the res­i­dents are again call­ing for that safe space.

“Last month I walked through the com­mu­ni­ty and asked if they would con­tribute to its re­vamp­ing, and it was a gen­er­al con­sen­sus. Al­so in the da­ta col­lec­tion, they asked what as­sur­ance would be giv­en to se­cu­ri­ty, prop­er su­per­vi­sion, and tu­tors with ex­pe­ri­ence to help with home­work,” Fr D’Here­aux re­lat­ed.

“So, we are al­so get­ting sup­port from AL­TA (Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion), the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment as well as the East Port of Spain De­vel­op­ment.”

The ComTrust Foun­da­tion of CIBC Caribbean has con­tributed to its re­fur­bish­ment. At a re­cent cheque han­dover, which was pre­sent­ed by An­tho­ny Seer­aj, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of CIBC Caribbean’s Trinidad Op­er­at­ing Com­pa­ny, Fr D’Here­aux said pro­ceeds would as­sist with the re­vamp­ing of the home­work cen­tre for the young peo­ple in the area.