There is a burning need to revive the community centres within the sugar industry, which were once a hive of activities contributing tremendously to the development of sports and culture.
It is sad and unfortunate that these institutions, except for a few, have all fallen into a state of disrepair and have become dormant as practically no organised activities are taking place at them, and the few that may be taking are done in an unsupervised and disorganised manner.
These community centres in the past helped tremendously to mould the lives of thousands of our youths and, in some cases, laid the foundation for many to become internationally acclaimed, particularly with respect to cricket – our national sport.
Some good examples of how these community centres helped to carve the careers of many of our great sportsmen are the long list of distinguished and international greats including Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Roy Fredericks, Shew Shivnarine, Moses Dwarka and Harry Prowell.
Anyone who grew up in one of these communities with these institutions would know that they were part of one’s life because from school or work, one virtually lived there being engaged in some form of sport or educational activity or both.
As such, youths never wandered aimlessly and got themselves into trouble as is happening today. If one were to go into most sugar estate communities, a pathetic sight of youngsters hanging out at street corners idling and in many cases ending up in trouble while these community centres are lying uselessly.
What many fail to realise is that these community centres have a rich history as they are national symbols of the struggle of sugar workers for better living conditions, which was led by the indomitable late President Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Therefore, we should not allow them to fall apart.
These facilities fructified as a result of the intensified struggle in the 1960s for better living conditions for sugar workers who were living in appalling conditions as they lived in logies with no running water,no electricity, deplorable sanitary facilities and no recreational facilities.
As a result of the intensified struggle, the Venn Commission was established to investigate the living conditions of sugar workers and one of its recommendations was the establishment of a Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund (SILWF) under which housing schemes and community centres were to be funded throughout the sugar belt with facilities for sport and educational activities such as libraries, etc.
The first such community centre was opened in May 1957 at Uitvlugt on the West Coast of Demerara. In fact, it was the first such facility in the entire English-speaking Caribbean.
Eventually, similar facilities were established in the other sugar estate communities and they were managed by adequately trained, committed and dedicated personnel – both paid ones and volunteers from the communities.
One outstanding figure in this regard was the late Baljeet Ramdin, who was the longest serving Welfare Officer of the Uitvlugt Community Centre.
He was a truly dedicated person in community development.
However, with the emergence of the People’s National Congress (PNC)  to government and the eventual decline of the sugar industry, these community centres began to decline rapidly and ultimately came to a virtual standstill as the coffers of the SILWF ran dry.
With the advent of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government in 1992,  some efforts were made to revive these facilities but they are still ill equipped and poorly managed, as the management personnel were not adequately trained or did not have the commitment that was needed for community development work.
As such, there is dire need to return these historical facilities to their former glory days. If we don’t, then the social infrastructure in those communities would further decline much to the detriment of the national developmental process.