FLANKERS
Community Profile
| Community Area | 0.37 km 2(37 ha) |
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| Community Liaison Officer | Paulette Dixon |
| Constituency | North Western St James |
Community Liaison Officer
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Paulette Dixon Liaison Officer |
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Flankers is a mixed community, having some good quality permanent housing mixed in with housing built from semi-permanent materials. Part of the community is well planned having a comprehensive road network, but the infrastructure has in many cases fallen into disrepair. The other part of the community is a large informal settlement with fewer basic services in a hilly area with winding roads.
Flankers is not the poorest community in Montego Bay; Canterbury, an inner city area, and Rose Heights are poorer. Unlike these communities, however, it has active CBOs. Flankers had a history of gang violence which was particularly acute around 1984 with violence between area gangs in Vietnam and Heart St. Drug trafficking was said to be a factor. Today, there is no evidence of criminal or area gangs, inter-gang violence or drug related gang violence.
Flankers has about thirty Community Based organisations (CBOs). The Community Development Committee is an umbrella organisation embracing them all. One important CBO is Flancodac, the Flankers Community Development Action Committee. It was fostered by the National Council on Drug Abuse, but has a wide remit for community improvement. A Peace & Justice Centre was founded in 2002 in the community, at the initiative of the Dispute Resolution Foundation, and with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) under its Social Conflicts and Legal Reform Project. A hundred and twenty-one mediators have been trained, ten certified after practicum. They have formed a Flankers Mediation Association, and act mainly in disputes between individuals. The centre shares a joint building with a Community Development Centre, which acts as a resource and adult learning centre, with a library of 5000 books; the adult learning centre (a remedial centre for learning from grade 7 to CXC level) uses volunteer teachers, and has a hundred and sixty students. The Centre also gives help with documents like wills, typing services and publishes a newsletter. It is currently developing a Youth Programme.
Another initiative is the START programme, which was undertaken by Sandals Hotels to train young people in areas related to the hotel services. The first intake in December 2003 of fifteen will receive HEART certification from the National Training Agency.
Several of the many churches (at least ten denominations are represented) have outreach programmes, including literacy classes, sewing classes, care of the elderly and youth groups. There are also several youth clubs (eleven according to one resident) and a women’s club. Flankers has a primary and junior high school. It is located at the entrance to Flankers and also serves neighbouring communities. There are three basic schools.
