Grace journeys to 1000

The Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation has embarked on ‘The Journey to 1000’ as it prepares to commemorate the centenary next year of its parent company, GraceKennedy.

Tankita Chance-Wilson, chief executive officer of Grace and Staff, says the foundation is on a mission to expand the number of young people it supports. She says the initiative provides financial and other support for the targeted group from mostly undeserved communities or areas where GraceKennedy has its operations in Kingston, Clarendon and St James. However, Chance-Wilson says the foundation does appreciate and take into consideration the fact that there are young people who are in need but are not necessarily living in the priority areas mentioned.

“The Journey to 1000 is really a new initiative that fits into our broader objective of serving our communities and creating equity among our students in education. It is an initiative that was inspired by our group CEO Mr Don Wehby, who charged our foundation to increase our support, at the time we were supporting financially approximately 500 students…, to double that number to 1,000 by 2022, the year that GraceKennedy will be celebrating 100 years of operations,” she explained.

“It’s a legacy project really. It is one that would be groundbreaking because no other foundation in Jamaica, certainly to my knowledge, supports that large number of students, and so it would serve as inspiration for others to widen and grow their numbers because the need is so significant,” she added.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

In order to qualify for assistance from the Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation, students must show financial need because their parents are unemployed or without a stable income, be past beneficiaries of assistance, and must be registered in an educational institution at the secondary or tertiary level. For those at the tertiary level, they must not be older than 35 years.

Chance-Wilson says special consideration is given to young people who themselves or their parents are active community volunteers, as well as those with disabilities.

And while the area of greatest need may be financial, the charity’s CEO stresses that emphasis is placed on the holistic development of beneficiaries.

“It’s quite a wide array of offerings for our students aimed at growing and developing the whole person, and hopefully for those in the at-risk category, serve as a diversionary tool,” Chance-Wilson said.

“Our education programme is a holistic programme. All our students who are part of a programme have access to co-curricular activities: we have an award-winning camera club, we have a vibrant mentorship programme where students are matched with professionals from GraceKennedy, as well as some older mature students,” she outlined.

“In addition, we provide counselling (as) we have an in-house counselling psychologist who leads that component of our offering, we also partner with students who are pursuing their master’s (degree) in social work who are interested in counselling to provide aid and support, and also the social workers who are part of the team here at Grace and Staff.”

As part of its education programme, Grace and Staff also operates homework centres in six communities across the Corporate Area, which provide a safe space for young people to get assistance with homework, and a STEM Centre in Parade Gardens, downtown Kingston, to provide students with specialised intervention in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“Our contribution to the lives of students and young people in these communities has served as motivation for other students and families to pursue education as a viable means of uplifting their circumstances,” Chance-Wilson said.