By RICARDO WELLS
THE Urban Renewal Commission revealed a new “key component” in its effort to improve the lives of the children in urban communities in New Providence.
Under the direction of co-chairs Algernon Allen and Cynthia Pratt, Urban Renewal unveiled two buses they hope will alleviate the programme’s transportation issues.
Deputy Director of Urban Renewal Gregory Butler said the two buses will go a long way in helping the commission achieve some of its core objectives.
“At times we have events and it becomes a hassle organising transportation to get persons where they need to be. That is what we hope to change,” said Mr Butler at a press conference on Friday.
“These vehicles will aid Urban Renewal across the board, but the band, the gifted Urban Renewal Band would benefit more than anyone else.”
The Urban Renewal Band boasts roughly 100 members and has plans to expand in future.
The band was established with the goal of using music to not only develop the lives of at-risk youth, but to also provide them with an outlet to display their talents.
Former pastor of Evangelistic Temple, Gary Curry and his family sponsored one of the buses and the other was funded by the Urban Renewal Foundation. The vehicles are valued at $9,700 each.
Mr Butler added that the commission has plans to expand its new fleet, but only if another sponsor comes forward to assist in the effort.
“We are eagerly awaiting another sponsor to come forward and help us to purchase a third vehicle. We have hopes to get another van that we can use to transport our instruments to and from events,” he said.
The bus dedication ceremony at Rawson Square on Friday brought Urban Renewal Week to a close, which started last week with a speech competition.
The aim of the week of activities was to build stronger connections between the Urban Renewal Foundation and inner-city areas.
Comments
ThisIsOurs 9 years, 5 months ago
Urban Renewal seems to be successfully accomplishing everything they were never mandated to do...if you want to break the back of crime via an urban renewal strategy, your chief strategist needs more qualifications than "coming from urban", or being a really nice church lady. Those people can operate a soup kitchen and do a lot of good with that. But a soup kitchen and a band are not an urban renewal strategy. We cannot spend 15 million on a band. Does the Bahamas All Stars have a 15 million budget? And think about it, they're a bigger, better band!! It would be interesting to find out how many band members actually learned to play through UR or are they just recycled members from other bands? This entity is WRONG headed.
The theory of one thing says, there are a lot of good things that could be done, find the one thing that would have the greatest impact and work on that first. Using our scarce resources on a band is not it.
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