Harmony Day at Harmonyville

Nigel Petillo

The Belize Grassroots Youth Empowerment Association, (BGYEA) gained fame for being an underdog organization with dreams of regular Belizeans owning land. The movement had convinced the government to follow through on the organization’s plan to develop a community called Harmonyville at mile forty one on the George Price Highway. The paperwork and plans are still being processed, but on Sunday, BGYEA intends to make it Harmony Day. News Five spoke to Harmonyville and BGYEA representative Nigel Petillo about the event.

Nigel Petillo, BGYEA

“We want to encourage our people that we need to start to develop the land. We can’t wait for the government or no organization to say when we wah get light, water or when the roads wah push. It is our levity at stake. We need to start go push the land now and clean up our community. So Harmony Day is designed for us to come out and as a community start to build that community spirit. Make we start to clean that buffer; make we plant some trees. We have so many mahogany trees and fruit trees to plant that day. We di have weh wi call dah potluck dah day deh. Bring yo cassava, yo plantain, yo Hicatee, yo iguana—throw den deh ina the pot and make we have food and drinks for each other. We have some music, some entertainers who wah come out there. It is not a party, but while we are out there together as a family building our community, we want to know that we are planning in the best interest to us who have lands out there and want to make sure that we di move in. So Harmony Day is a day for us to start to building our community; start to identify what we could start find the infrastructure and so forth. Anybody weh wah bring wah extra lawnmower, wah extra machete, bring yo rubber boots—you can’t complain about sandals and pretty shoes and nails dah day deh—it’s all about getting in the dirt and getting it done. We want to remind our members who are traveling from Belize City that a bus will be leaving Pound Yard at seven o’clock sharp; seven o’clock not Belizean time. You need fi contribute five dollars for the trip. That takes you to Harmonyville, spend the day, do what you got to do and you come back up in that bus. I also want to remind our members, we have some land papers that we’ll be issuing out from phases one to four; those people who never received their land papers, we have those land papers—about three hundred land papers that we have to get out. Also remember that there is a deadline when it comes to making your payments towards your purchase price. So we are asking our members to come out; be supportive; let’s build our community. Let’s get Harmonyville off the ground.”