Morvant

Morvant (pronounced, in the local English dialect, "Morva") is a community in Trinidad and Tobago located east of Port of Spain and west of Barataria.

Location

Morvant is located in the southern foothills of the Northern Range of the island of Trinidad. It is bordered by the Lady Young Road on the North and penetrates the communities of Mon Repos on the North East, Barataria on the East, Laventille on the South West and Belmont on the West.

Morvant was originally a village that housed many working-class families who made their livelihoods within the homes and businesses of the (relatively) more affluent middle-class people living in the nearby capital city of Port of Spain. Fortunately, there are still many older Trinidadians who can remember and tell the stories about how, in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- long before the political advent of Eric Williams and the PNM -- the Trinidad Government undertook in Morvant an innovative community-based housing development program that brought greater prosperity and stability to Morvant. The program was patterned on the community development and housing strategy that was being used in Puerto Rico and, some years later, was used in Cuba. Through this program, the government solicited the interest of several Morvant families and encouraged them to assist one another in restoring older homes and in building new homes in Morvant. As a result of this housing development approach, many new families joined the older Morvant residents and came to belong and strengthen this vibrant, resourceful and proud working-class community.