CoP outreach at Mosquito Hall: Police outpost, forming Scout Group among other issues discussed at meeting

Acting Commissioner of Police, Clifton Hicken along with Commander of Regional Division 4 C, Senior Superintendent Khali Pareshram met with residents of Mosquito Hall, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD), where several concerns were addressed.

The residents highlighted their concerns and issues affecting them in the community including drugs and alcohol use by students, loud music/noise nuisance, drinking and disrespectful attitude especially by young men.
Hicken, who sat and listened attentively to the residents, has committed to helping the community and more so, raised several issues pertaining to flooding in the area with Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar.
Taking a brief pause in the meeting, the Acting Commissioner singled out several children who were present at the meeting to come forward in a group. He spoke directly to them as he encouraged them to take their education seriously and be the best that they can be, while urging them to stay away from drugs.

“I want you to promise me from today there will be no more drug smoking and if anybody encourages you to smoke drugs, tell them the Commissioner said not to do that as it is wrong and it is not healthy,” Hicken pleaded with the youths whom he labelled as the “catalyst for change”.
As he continued the meeting, the CoP took several on-the-spot decisions, one of which is to form a Scout Group in the community.
“Let me make this clear and I’m telling you now…we are going to bring scouts to Mahaica. This means that the children will be a part of the Scouts Group and that’s a national activity. So starting from Saturday (next week), you are going to see the Police coming in here in numbers and they are going to interact with the parents of the children,” the Top Cop said.
He said once the parents/guardians sign the Scout Group consent form, he will get someone from the Scouts Association to visit the community to ensure the children are provided with their uniform/kit and are ready to take part in the Scout movement/activity on weekends.
“The Scouts programme will entail the children moving from this community to Georgetown in a centralised way and they’re going to be exposed to other children from communities so they can share ideas, they can share views and they can understand each other’s cultures. That itself will bring attitudinal changes to the community.”
In addressing the need for enhanced Police presence in the community, Hicken highlighted that prevention is an important aspect of the Force’s Strategic Plan while adding, “We are going to have Police assigned to this community and we would like to have at least two or three pairs of Police and they’re going to be walking this community as a prevention.”
Further, he stated that the GPF will focus heavily on crime prevention while informing residents the he has taken not on their cries to establish an outpost in the community. “We’re going to look at the possibility of you having that outpost in a short period of time,” Hicken stated.
At the end of the community engagement, several hampers were distributed to the residents.
Saturday’s initiative is not an isolated one, as it is an ongoing effort being led by the Acting Commissioner himself, with tremendous support from his Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and the corporate sector and is in keeping with the Force’s five-point strategic plan, one of which focusses heavily on building partnerships with communities and civil society to create safer environments countrywide.