Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 19, 2017 (SKNIS): The Department of Statistics in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Social Services and Gender Affairs and Creative Inc. – an NGO organization, is undertaking a Community Baseline Survey relating to crime and violence in selected communities in St. Kitts and in Nevis.
The project will run from July 20 through August 20, 2017. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded Community, Family and Youth Resilience (CFYR) programme supports family networks, communities, service providers and government agencies to implement successful approaches to reduce crime and violence and increase opportunities for youth in St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and Guyana.
Carlton Phipps, Director of Department of Statistics, said that a project of this nature is extremely important to St. Kitts and Nevis, as crime and violence are of great concern.
“In St. Kitts and Nevis…the general populous is very much concerned with the rise in crime and violence in recent years and this is a matter I think every person would want to see significantly reduced or eradicated, and we believe that it will bring great benefits to the selected communities [Sandy Point, Cayon, Newtown, Irish Town, and St. Johnston Village],” said Director Phipps, adding that a number of interviews will also be carried out in St. Pauls as a control community within the survey. “In this project, we are hoping to basically adopt a positive approach in terms of looking at what are the issues within communities and how those issues can be addressed in a positive way, providing coping strategies and providing strategies for persons to improve their standards of living to assist in alleviating the problem of crime and violence within the communities in St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Mr. Phipps explained that the project will be carried out in two parts.
“This project in the first part, the initial part of it involves the conducting of a baseline survey in that we gather information from households within the selected communities. We are targeting members of the households and within each household we would only interview one person, so that way we get a range of responses on how persons view life and livelihood within their community,” he said. “In the second phase of the project, it involves conducting town hall style meetings to get general feedback from the leaders and other members within the community and also to do mapping of community sites and monuments, more or less things that the persons within those communities consider important features.”
The director hopes that the project, as well as the cooperation of persons, would uplift selected communities, “in part, creating greater community togetherness [while] looking at the specific issues that relate to crime and violence within the community and looking at the measures that can be adopted to address those issues going forward.”
He used the opportunity to thank the other partners for partnering with the Department of Statistics, and appealed to the selected communities to cooperate fully, providing accurate reliable responses that is needed in order to ensure the successful implementation of the project.
