Central Kingston residents say area ‘like Ukraine’

"You know the likkle song weh say ' my likkle playground has become a battlefield'? This pass battlefield, this come een like Ukraine," bemoaned one resident of Rose Gardens in central Kingston.

She was among a group of women who were feted at a small reception in celebration of International Women's Day held earlier this week, hosted by Scotiabank and Project STAR. The initiative is a social and economic development initiative created by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica in partnership with the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and is driven by communities to bring about societal transformation through targeted interventions. The first communities targeted are Rose Gardens and Parade Gardens.

But even as the participants, some of whom are entrepreneurs, soaked up the ambiance and benevolence of the corporate groups, they all wore worried looks as the harsh reality of returning home, possibly to a hail of bullets, seeped in.

"Dah war yah a gwan fi 'bout five years. We used to sell ground provisions but affi move inside fi sell rum, cigarettes and juice because nobody nah come out a road again. Rose Gardens is not what it once was. You have people a shoot you from the housetop, that nuh look good," the resident stressed. She expressed hope that intervention through Project STAR will ease tensions in Rose Gardens and Parade Gardens, two communities in Kingston Central that have been at odds.

"We will take anything. Everybody affi come together because we need a state of emergency, that alone can help we right now. Business nah profit because we affi lock up early, it's a ghost town! We feel away because everybody wah guh weh," the resident told THE STAR.

Scotiabank has already donated $10 million to the peace-building initiative.