Carib Cement easing back-to-school burden
Several students in east Kgn cash in on $2m in vouchers
Published:Friday | August 18, 2023 | 12:09 AMCorey Robinson/Senior Staff Reporter
This time of year is nerve-racking for them. Most feel a mixture of anxiety and impatience as well as fears and fleeting finances in the face of a daunting race against time to secure their children’s back-to-school supplies.
The book lists are usually the most expensive component.
Cumulatively, five parents canvassed at a handover ceremony at the Carib Cement Company Limited (CCCL) Sports Club in East Kingston on Thursday will have to fork out more than $242,000 for their textbooks for 13 children.
Among them, one parent must find $75,000 for her three children’s books. Another will have to find $54,000 for her three children’s textbooks.
The already significant expense gets even more burdensome when added to school fees, which another parent claimed was a total of $120,000 for her twins who are slated to attend sixth form at two Kingston high schools. Then there are costs for school uniforms and shoes that must be considered.
“Right now, I have a parent with four children, and two of the fathers died, and it has really been difficult for that mother to get by daily,” bemoaned Tanesha Grant Harvey, acting principal at Bull Bay Primary and Infant School.
“We have over 100 students from mostly unemployed parents. Some people do a little farming just to get by on a daily basis. Some of them work in bars or run a little shop. So I am definitely sure that a back-to-school voucher would be very beneficial to them,” continued Grant Harvey, who secured several vouchers valued at $20,000 each for students.
“They tell you that it is hard and that they will try, but at the end of the day, some parents are just able to find it because they have other children,” she continued, singing praises to the sponsors.
BOOK DISTRIBUTION
As part of its social outreach, the CCCL, in recent weeks, issued 117 book vouchers valued at $2.2 million. Yesterday, however, was the official handover ceremony to schools of various levels that are in the proximity of the company’s Rockfort cement plant or other locations with which the CCCL is affiliated.
“I really encourage you all to take good care of the books. Don’t destroy them. Read them carefully, read them slowly. There’s no rush,” offered Managing Director Yago Castro. “Today, everything is just so immediate. Everything seems to be so fast. With books, there is no rush.”
Among the schools that benefited were Bull Bay Primary as well as Donald Quarrie, Denham Town, Bull Bay, and Camperdown high schools. Eleven Miles Youth in Action Club, residents of Rockfort, and students of the Paradise Street Basic were also among the recipients.
“We have students whose parents have been in and out of prison, and so they are not able to provide for the child, and society looks down on such a person,” explained Christine Hews-Johnson, dean of discipline at the Denham Town High School.
“For those students, most times, it’s outside persons who come in and help with shoes and uniforms or that student will end up idling on the corner, and you know we can’t have that. So we have to try our best,” she continued, noting that teachers often pitch in to help students in need, but they, too, are strained as they are also parents.
For Novelette Elliott Blair, coming up with $120,000 in sixth-form school fees for her twin children is mindboggling.
“The father is here helping me as well, but it is not easy. Sometimes he can’t even find it. I’ve not bought the uniform and those things as yet. Actually, I’ve reached nowhere in the list of things to get as yet. So this voucher will really help me to get things started,” Elliott Blair said.