Toots Foundation partners with Youths For Excellence to distribute tablets

The Toots Foundation partnered up with Youths For Excellence Limited and the Ministry of Education and Youth to distribute tablets to 45 children. Fifteen children from three schools: Windward Road, Rollington Town and Treadlight primary schools, were presented with the tablets in a special handover ceremony at the Ministry of Education and Youth earlier this month.

Leba Hibbert, daughter of Toots Hibbert and vice president of the Toots Foundation, donated $750,000 in her father’s honour towards the procurement of the tablets and the organisation’s overall operations of eradicating education inequity. She said, “My father believed in the power of education and that empowerment of the youth was the best way to fix our society. I am so proud of the legacy he has left behind. My dad will never die. I am grateful to Youths For Excellence for their partnership in helping us have my dad’s vision realised.”

Jénine Shepherd, founder of Youths For Excellence Limited, thanked the partners on the project.

“We welcome this handover of devices by the Toots Foundation and Youths For Excellence. This is a wonderful and well-appreciated gesture to the selected schools. We cannot thank you enough for this generous donation that will support our efforts to reduce, and I dare say, eliminate, the digital divide within the school system. This obviously is in line with what the ministry has been trying to do,” said Fayval Williams, minister of education and youth.

GRATEFUL

Vice principal of Rollington Town Primary, Pauline Harris, said, “We are grateful for these tablets. We are refurbishing the other computers there and we want to go to a level where one class can use the computers fully so we’re really grateful for this. We will surely make use of them.”

Casmin Hayles-Chambers, acting principal at Treadlight Primary School said, “Gratitude is a must, so I just want to say a big thank you on behalf of Treadlight Primary School.”

Tanisha Titters-Montaque, acting principal at Windward Road Primary and Junior High School also expressed her gratitude.

Jayden McFarlane, headboy at Rollington Town Primary said, “I know that a lot of the children do not have these tablets and I’m glad that you are giving them to us. Children in Jamaica do not have access to these things and would love to learn, so I would like to thank you guys one more time.”

The monitor for grade two at Treadlight Primary stated, “Thank you for the tablets and helping us. There’s a lot of things on them that we can learn. Thank you.”