Year-old Project STAR looking for greater community buy-in

As Project Social Transformation and Renewal (STAR) looks forward to celebrating its first anniversary next Tuesday, the private sector drivers behind the initiative say it will not be a success if more community members do not buy in.

With that, they are desperately calling for community members in East Kingston, Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland and May Pen, Clarendon, where programmes have already been established, to become more involved.

Launched on July 25 last year, Project STAR is a five-year social and economic development initiative created by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) in partnership with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and driven by communities to bring about societal transformation through targeted interventions in under-resourced areas of Jamaica.

Crime and violence

One of the major goals of Project STAR is to attack Jamaica’s ongoing crisis of crime and violence. Between the start of the year and July 15, there were 731 persons murdered in Jamaica, which represents a 10 per cent decrease in comparison to 2022. For serious crimes in Jamaica since the start of the year and up to July 15, there were 2,397 reported. Although it represents a decrease of 14.7 per cent in comparison to 2022, it is such data that is used to form the foundation for the objectives of Project STAR since its inception.

Project STAR aims to interrupt violence-prone communities with high recorded cases of crime and violence, such as East Kingston, Savanna-la-Mar and May Pen.

Eight months ago, Project STAR first implemented physical initiatives in the communities of Rose Garden and Parade Gardens (jointly referred to as east downtown Kingston). Four months ago, it moved into Savanna-lar-Mar, and two months ago into May Pen, Clarendon. These practical, social and economic initiatives, primarily driven by the residents, include:

• A breakfast programme for 200 pupils at four basic schools in the East Kingston area, through which food is donated by PSOJ members, which is aimed at improving school attendance and ultimately the educational outcomes in those communities.

• Parenting support programmes, which are in keeping with Project STAR’s objective of strengthening families and their social well-being

• Job-readiness training for 80 persons, of which 50 per cent have been placed in jobs in some of the island’s leading companies

• Visioning sessions with the fisherfolk from the St Mary’s Fishing Village.

Some success stories reported since Project STAR became involved include school principals advising that the breakfast programme resulted in improved school attendance, and Beresford Williams, superintendent of police and divisional commander for Central Kingston, reporting that, for the past three months, there have been no gunshots fired in Rose Garden, a community that once cowered in fear of such a daily occurrence, with men running on rooftops and terrorising families.

... Project STAR gaining momentum as community champions drive change

During a tour of East Kingston communities on Tuesday, with several influencers from the reggae and dancehall industry, Saffrey Brown, project director for Project STAR, said that even with investments from stakeholder in the business fraternity into the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ)-based project, it is the people on the ground whose support is needed to keep the initiative going until its planned end date in 2027.

Already, Brown told The Gleaner, community engagement is evident in all three communities in which Project STAR operates.

“What we’re finding is, whilst we do a lot of the activity work with the communities, whether it’s around youth engagement in sports or employment or parenting, one of the most important things that we’re seeing is that the whole kind of community ownership structure is starting to be built back. So community-based organisations are becoming vibrant again, dormant ones are sort of getting reactivated. You see the communities start to identify and lead on a lot of the activities that are important to them, so they are the ones now starting to drive a lot of the action,” Brown said.

Brown said, the communities of East Kingston, where she was speaking with The Gleaner, have come alive again through Project STAR and with people moving around freely and fulfilling one of the initiative’s objectives, which is to create safer communities, because of leadership by community members who they refer to as community champions.

She told The Gleaner that, with the community champions driving the change, that provides the society with early indications that Project STAR has started to gain momentum in achieving its ultimate goal.

“The communities that have progressed the furthest are in East Kingston, because we went in there [first] in November… so the communities are at the sort of stage that we would expect them to be at based on the entry model that we have, because they’re these steps that we take when we move into a community, and do within that context,” Brown said.

She also gave an example seen in East Kingston, where Project STAR is working closely with the Social Development Commission to do community planning process, and, on Wednesday, there was a full day worth of activities with the community members and stakeholders carrying out that visioning.

These outcomes may be replicated in the other communities in which Project STAR ventures going forward.

“With the communities, they’re really going to start going through that and working through that and identifying the root cause issues. The goal is that they come up with the mid-term community transformation plan and once the overall community signs of on that, that’s what East Kingston will try to implement as of September,” Brown said.

A month ago, on June 22, Project STAR created history by becoming the first social initial public offer (IPO) to list on the Jamaica Social Stock Exchange (JSSE) with the objective of raising $100 million by August 18. On the other hand, the project has also received almost $300 million in donations and corporate commitments, and has a budget of about $2 billion for its run time.

At the launch of that IPO, Keith Duncan, co-chair of the project oversight committee, said the funds were expected to improve social and economic outcomes in a number of communities, allowing them to become places to live, work, raise families and do business.

“The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) has identified over 100 vulnerable and violent communities across Jamaica where social and economic outcomes are poor. These are areas that are usually plagued by the following characteristics: high rates of major crime, violence, gang on gang violence, reprisal killings, high unemployment rates, high numbers of unattached youth, poor educational outcomes, high poverty rates, poor infrastructure,” Duncan said.

The social project aims to tackle crime, community development and education and is seeking to raise $650 million on the JSSE over the next three years, in three different offers.

Now, with less than a month to go before the close of the first offer, Project STAR’s IPO is aiming to raise $100 million by August 18.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com