 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. We will begin today's proceedings. Welcome to the official handover ceremony of the children's playground to the Fawcaw Preschool. My name is Donna Charles and as we commence today's proceedings, I would like to acknowledge the presence of Honourable Isabel Joseph, Parliamentary Representative for Babineau and also Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Natural Resources and Cooperatives. Honourable Dr. Gail Rigabet, Minister for Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development. Mr. Darrell Raymond, General Manager of Rainforest Adventures, Rainforest Adventures team members, teachers and staff, students, media personnel and other specially invited guests, a warm welcome. Today is indeed a momentous occasion and we know that the kids in particular are very excited about the unveiling of their new playground. Rainforest Adventures has been operating in Babineau for over 14 years and we're proud to see that the company is well established and respected in the community of Babineau. Throughout the years we've always been involved in many community activities and today is testament of our continued support to uplift the community in whatever way possible. I now invite Mr. Darrell Raymond, General Manager of Rainforest Adventures to deliver a few opening remarks. Mr. Raymond. Today's opening of this play area for the Fawassaw Preschool is a very special occasion and it's a long time coming. Today's ceremony marks the culmination of almost a year of planning because I believe it was in January of last year that Minister Ezekiel Joseph initiated the discussions with me and said this area he had already secured this area. It had been fenced. The initial grasping had been done and all that was needed was for us to come together to procure and install some play equipment. Naturally it was our pleasure to agree to this and we had planned to have everything in place for the reopening of school at the opening after the Easter break last year. We were ready to go. However as we all know the COVID pandemic hit us and we had to put our plans on hold until now but God knows best and everything happens at the right time. So today we can celebrate this momentous occasion. As a company this project was a no-brainer for us. They are class synergies and this project ticked all the right boxes for us. First we saw this as a pure and genuine example of a public-private sector partnership. Given the difficulties brought about by the COVID pandemic no government and indeed no private sector entity has the resources to do everything that we want to do. So projects like this when we can come together and pull our resources for common good are something that we embrace and we hope to continue to undertake. Secondly rainforest adventures believes in green spaces. We believe in allowing people to play and enjoy the natural environment. That is our ethos that is what we are about as a company. So a project like this naturally we would embrace. Even more importantly we believe that physical activity particularly among our young people is critical so this space allows our young children to recreate and play and sets the foundation for their development. We also see this park as a place where members of the community at large can come. Families can come with their kids so it will encourage community building and family cohesion and bonding and also most of our team members we have about 90 staff. The majority of them are from this area and community surrounding. Many of whom have children who have either attended or currently attend this preschool. So it is our little way to give back and say thank you for the support that the Babano community has given us as a company. You have guarded us jealously, guarded our infrastructure, provided us with extraordinary workers and team members and for this we say thank you. So in closing I just want to implore the students, the teachers and the parents to take care of this place. Take care of the infrastructure. Ensure that you use it safely. As a company we will continue to play our part in maintaining the infrastructure, adding to it as we go along and to ensure that it is up it is kept to a high standard. We also ask that in using it you ensure that you follow all necessary health and safety protocols, sanitize on a regular basis and follow the guidance provided by our health officials. So again I thank everybody and wish you a very prosperous and successful 2021. Thank you everybody. Thank you Mr. Raymond. As we continue please join me in welcoming to the podium Honourable Dr. Gail Rigabat. Dr. Rigabat. Thank you Madam for ceremonies. My colleague Minister the Honourable Ezekiel Joseph, Parliamentary Representative for Babano. With your kind permission can I greet the warm beautiful people of this community as friends. Good afternoon friends. It is so good to be here. On behalf of the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations we wish to extend our gratitude to Rainforest Adventures for their generous contribution to this play area. We note the great importance of play as a significant part of early learning and social development of young children. The engagement in play builds a child's creativity and imagination. It provides for the development of important social skills such as learning to take turns, cooperating, getting along and team building. Additionally children develop their fine and gross motor skills in the simplest play activities such as throwing and catching a ball. Play helps children learn to develop skills in expressing themselves and exploring their experiences, ideas and emotions. We must also appreciate the great need for active children in the quest to keep healthy and maintain our well-being. At all stages play is necessary for a child's social development, mental well-being and maturity. It is with this in mind therefore that we applaud the efforts of the parliamentary representative in collaboration with Rainforest Adventures for extraordinary effort at creating this social space in constructing this play area. This is a tremendous resource that will impact not only our children but their families and indeed the wider community. Our pledge is therefore to use this facility effectively and safely so that our children may enjoy this space while we continue to contribute to their holistic development. Thank you. Thank you Honourable Minister. I now warmly invite our parliamentary representative for Babono Honourable Isikal Joseph to the podium to deliver his remarks. I want to start by expressing my appreciation to you Mr Riman and of course to your company and your staff for considering the requests that we made and I say we because it's a community made as it pertains to establishing this park. I want to say that when we had a side visit with Mr Riman, myself Mr Riman and some members of my executive the initial intention was to build a public toilet facility on this field because I'm sure you're quite aware of the work that has taken place on the far south field as it pertains to the lights and of course other fields around Babono and it's our intention as much as possible to see how we can improve the facilities at all of our fields. So when we had that side visit something struck me and say why but Isikal you have started this park. You have spent over $60,000 to re-establish this park as far as fencing and laying down the foundation and replanting the grass. Why don't you do change focus a bit and request from Skyride. Resources to put down the bits and pieces where our children can come out and play and I must say that I was very delighted to see that the change of focus to place right away is from the day one is from the time I mentioned that you say yes to me that's a better project than the toilet facility that you're talking about. Doesn't mean we're not going to continue developing our field. But as you have heard before there are a lot of benefits to be derived by putting down this facility for our children because right now unlike when we grew up our children are more confined to in front of the television they're more confined to staying in the house and the question of going out and recreating building up their physical strength building up the social skills is very much lacking. So I want to echo the sentiments expressed previously that I'm really hoping that we can utilize this facility and of course to continue to maintain and keep this facility. We have discussed it and again apart from establishing this facility Mr. Riemann has agreed to employ a full-time person especially whilst we are speaking of the use of this facility by the students at the preschool you heard Mr. Riemann speak of the use of this facility by the community. So definitely by employing someone to behave full-time on weekends we are hoping that the community can see the need for us to bring our children here and to recreate. And I want to say thank you very much again for agreeing to employ a full-time person to manage the operation of this facility on weekends. And there's Mr. Riemann around to applause for that please. But the commitment does not stop here we still have other packs to build and I can say that the bits and pieces are already in St. Lucia and the next preschool that we'll be looking at will be the Lagge preschool. And I've gotten a letter Mr. Madam Minister from your PS approving the establishment of a playground at the Lagge preschool. Unfortunately the delay is on our side we have not fenced the area so that we can establish that preschool but based on discussions we are hoping that before the ending of this month we shall see again another facility funded by Rainforest in the Babono community. In Babono we develop things, we only do one thing without many things. For example we have free fields in Lagge in Babono with lights. So whilst we are going to Lagge with another facility I'm sure as we the the publicities out there working along with Rainforest Adventure putting them establishing playgrounds I'm sure the other preschools are becoming to me for that type of support. I want to say that I'm really looking forward for us and I see us the community showing appreciation as far as the maintenance of this facility. I will here to come here and see it has been neglected it's been abused because by showing appreciation I'm sure we can get further support from private sectors for us to continue in that vein. So once again I want to as parliamentary representative express my appreciation to you Mr. Raymond and your staff and your company and of course the Ministry of Education for a green to establish this facility and I'm really looking forward to the students and children in the forest or by extension Babono because if you're going to open on weekends we will not limit on whether individuals come from all we'd want is for them to utilize it in a safe manner and of course to enjoy whatever we have established. So thank you very much in closing let us stay safe because the numbers in Babono is not encouraging. So let us stay safe let us follow the protocols that has been established so at least we can see the reopening of our economy and of course the continued employment of our people who have lost the job from since March April last year. Thank you very much.