A Manifesto for We. Social

See Part 1 "Political" Here
Social

Education

This is the backbone of our society. An informed public, who know the difference between pre-packaged information and the truth is tantamount to make decisions during elections. The system that has been allowed to develop in Trinidad & Tobago is failing us. What we need is less emphasis on simple training of individuals as if their on an assembly line, to taking time to meet each individual's need to see that they can process and interpret information with the ability to analyze and problem solve.

Firstly we need to understand that education isn't a blanket philosophy, from the time of early childhood the child must discover what he or she is good at. To put it another way, shoe horning a curriculum down the throats of our young people is not working. Each child learns differently. Right now there is a serious crisis that has developed in our nations schools, we have students passing final exams without the ability to elocute nor write proper English. This is PARAMOUNT to the success of the nation, because if you cannot be understood, then you cannot teach nor can you learn. Why are children not learning proper English? Because their parents and their teachers don't know what it is.

I have a radical idea, that may not be possible and may be shouted down as unpatriotic, but this is my thought. We hand over ALL primary school education to foreign trained teachers and we need to put teachers back into their own school to re-teach them how to write and speak. This not a joke, this is a serious situation, all you need is the will and the means and by 2020 I'm sure we'd be back on track education wise. I mean if we can bring Chinese labour at the drop of a hat, why not teachers looking for new opportunities abroad? We can even give parents incentives to go back to school themselves to re-learn. We have CEPEP and URP and MUST right? well if their not being used properly, let's START using them properly.

GATE & Scholarships

I think GATE is good thing, but like everything else it needs to be transparent. I think we need to have a third party handling scholarships. The idea of a Government company is a good thing in theory, but every government company needs to act like a public company and provide reports every quarter to its shareholders, WE. So in the case of awarding scholarships, this should be done by a separate entity not beholden to any party or special interest. The laws need to be updated and the people have to come from different walks of life, including the differently abled. That way its free and fair.

Housing

Again all you need is the political will and publicly show who's getting what house where. If we change the voting system, then the voter padding issue becomes non-existant. Housing is a necessary social activity, however its allocation must be transparent. Unfortunately there is no easy answer to the housing shortage, other than to build more. We just have to make sure we build good quality houses.

Heatlh

This one's easy to fix, but lacks political will. I think the COP's solution was and is the best.

A PATIENT-CENTERED HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

The gross neglect and inadequacies of the existing health care system are clear indicators of the extent to which the Manning regime has failed the people of Trinidad and Tobago. The Congress of the People will implement a Patient Bill of Rights entitling accessible, affordable, timely and professional healthcare services to all persons, at all times. This will ensure that patients will be treated with respect and dignity by all health care providers. We will:

• provide a patient driven health care service with reliable, efficient,effective and sustainable delivery systems.
• provide patient oriented professional and administrative support to all who access the health system.
• provide high quality service at all national, regional and community based health facilities.
• guarantee the provision of patient friendly physical facilities and state of-the-art medical equipment.
• address the disparity in service between private and public healthcare systems.
• Consideration will be given to adopting a universal health care system.
• address the gross physical inadequacies in the health sector and the administrative inadequacies in the Ministry of Health and Regional Health Authorities

But one thing they're missing is having to wade through all that red tape and Doctor fraternities that exist in the Health Authorities. We need to revamp whose and maybe fire most of those who are in charge. Who will we put instead? Hard to say, but the corruption in the heath care sector is entrenched. This will not be easy, even the United States is having problems. The foundation is weak, the building cannot stand.

Security

This is even harder. All police officers must go back into training. A new system of checks in the Police Service must be created. I actually would recommend (if its not done so already) to get the Army men to train policemen in discipline and initiate systems where firearm control and responsibility are made priority. The Minster of National Security, who ever he will be, must hold meetings with the Commissioner of Police everyday and this job will be the hardest, but the person in charge needs to have willpower and management skills that border on the superhuman. . . BUT all of this can be solved with one action. We also need a strong Internal Affairs section to police the police. Not some "namsy pandy", Service Commission or whatever, a third party that answers to the Attorney General, or some such top person not affiliated with any political party.

Arrest all the "Community Leaders" Revamp CEPEP and URP and clean it up.

Give the courts more money and LET THEM DO THIER JOB. We need more night courts and Magistrates need to be given more powers. Again the COP had some good ideas.

In summary we have to put back into the people's hands the idea of personal responsibility. If we use our "Advertising budgets" to create a communication making citizens more aware of what THEY can do to make themselves part of the process, we will win half the battle. I think right now, Trini's keep feeling that the government owes them everything. We need to go by the philosophy of JFK:

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."