TEF rewards Holland with $2.5m in laptops, equipment

The importance of safeguarding the environment was under-scored by executive director of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), Dr Carey Wallace, at the official opening of a computer room furnished with 27 laptops and other computer equipment valued at $2.5 million to the Holland High School on Tuesday. The computer room has also been outfitted with a projector and screen with surround sound.

Dr Wallace challenged the high school students, who collectively earned the reward by placing first in the recent TEF-sponsored Sustainable Destination Alliance of the Americas recycling competition in the Falmouth area, to become ambassadors for recycling.

"You students have a responsibility that is bigger than yourselves, because you are trying to change a pattern of behaviour that's been habitual over generations, and here you are now, the enlightened ones, needing to influence your own parents, your own community to change their habits and start practising the new habit," he told a gathering of students and invited guests.

Ambassadors for change

Reminding them that it was their country and their future that was being protected, he underscored that "it is in your interest to make sure you are ambassadors for that change, so I charge you to think beyond just the school, the competition and in your own communities and try to influence the people around you".

Over 4,000 students from five schools participated in the Falmouth leg of the competition, with the tag line, 'Go Green and Win Big' aimed at engaging children and broadening the reach of solid waste management in Falmouth. Although not using plastic bottles on its campus, led by their Tourism Action Club Coordinator Aishea Lawrence Reid, Holland High collected more than 50 per cent of the total of 247 bags of plastic bottles weighing 1,694 pounds in and around their community over four weekends.

Dr Wallace, who said he was very impressed by the cleanliness and ambience of the school, the show of hospitality by students and staff, assured them that "Falmouth, and Trelawny overall, is going to be the model for Jamaica." Having emerged as a reso/prt town, he said much attention was being given to uplifting the infrastructure in Falmouth, but money was not all and it was up to the people to make it happen.