Mayor Plans Annual ‘Labour for Belize’ Initiative
Darrell Bradley
The Belize City Council is marking its fifth annual ‘Labour for Belize’ event on May first, beginning at the rising of the sun at B.T.L. Park. A feature initiative of the mayoralty of Darrell Bradley, the project encompasses various efforts at making the Old Capital look a little brighter and providing needed community service to Belize City. The Mayor discussed the Council’s plans at a press briefing this afternoon.
Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
“On Labour Day, which is a rightly deserved holiday for the nation’s labourers, we will be out from six a.m. in the morning to twelve midday on various service projects throughout Belize City. We are inviting members of the public to join in this initiative. As I indicated earlier, this is the fifth annual Labour for Belize; this year we will be meeting at five-forty-five at B.T.L. Park; we will have breakfast; we will have a small opening ceremony which will feature a brief presentation by myself and a brief word of prayer for Belize City, and we will have transportation for the various service sites. This year, we have over five hundred people who have registered for Labour for Belize and we have twenty-six service sites throughout Belize City which we have designated. A lot of the sites focus on cleaning activities, tree-planting; we’re also going to do renovation works with several streets in Belize City, and we are also focusing on bringing improvement to several persons who were hit by fires and by flooding and by hurricane, so that we are doing very light remedial work to certain homes within Belize City. And we are encouraging as much members of the public to really support this initiative. It is pre-organized so that we have already selected the twenty-six sites. One of the things we are very pleased [about] also is that individual neighborhoods have called in the City Council and they have said that they want to do individual projects within their neighbourhood and we have put that on the program, so that people can stay within their community; they can work on a project provided that they register the project so that we can provide logistical support in the form of garbage bags or equipment, ensuring that the garbage is picked up after the activity. So that it’s a very organized activity and we are encouraging every single person: on this day and every day, do some initiative that builds your community, and on Labour Day we will be labouring for Belize.”
The event is being dedicated to the recent victims of fire in Belize City, particularly Majestic Alley. In a public note, the Council informs that the historic Belize City Swing Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on Sunday, April thirtieth, for the purposes of re-painting as part of the initiative.
