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TransJamaican Highway gives $2.5m boost to ECC, primary school literacy programmes

Published:Sunday | July 23, 2023 | 2:11 AM
From left: Susan Brown, head of finance and corporate services and Claudia Simms senior administrative officer at TransJamaican Highway aided by Shamira Brown, student of Brown’s Basic School present a symbolic cheque valued at $200,000 to senior teacher
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From left: Susan Brown, head of finance and corporate services and Claudia Simms senior administrative officer at TransJamaican Highway aided by Shamira Brown, student of Brown’s Basic School present a symbolic cheque valued at $200,000 to senior teacher Bleneisha Brown along with her students Keneil James and Dominic Mendez.

The TransJamaican Highway Limited (TJH) and its subsidiary, Jamaican Infrastructure Operator Limited, which operates the Highway 2000 East-West corridor of Jamaica’s toll roads, has donated $2,500,000 to the Early Childhood Commission (ECC) and primary school literacy programmes to mark its 20th anniversary.

“Our children [are] our future, we believe that literacy is very important and the early childhood and primary levels should be targetted so that by the time our children reach the high-school level they are all literate and hopefully advanced in reading,” said Ivan Anderson, managing director of the TJH.

He shared that while the company’s initiatives generally get started in September to coincide with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s International Literacy Day on September 8, the company wanted to get a head start and give back during the back-to-school period.

“This year, September 25, is our 20th anniversary of operations, and our commemorative activities include giving back to the communities in which we operate. We have opted to provide the funds ahead of the school year to assist the administrators in their preparations for the new school year,” Anderson shared.

He continued, “It is a widely held belief that education helps eradicate poverty and hunger, giving people the chance at better lives and a part of that is literacy. In playing our part in helping to improve the national literacy rate, we are donating to a total of six schools which are registered and up-to-date with the Ministry of Education or Early Childhood Commission.”

THE SELECTED SCHOOLS

The six schools to have met the requirements were Freetown Primary School and Brown’s Basic School in Freetown, Clarendon; McAuley Primary School and Ensom City Basic School in Spanish Town, St Catherine, and the Greater Portmore Primary and Portsmouth Basic schools in Portmore, St Catherine. Another of the prerequisites for the schools which will benefit from the $2.5m donation, was to have an established reading and/or literacy programme which pays special attention to students outside of the usual curriculum requirement.

“TJH is engaging schools that our research shows have met the criteria of the initiative. It is our hope that the donation will contribute to resources that will help the children to improve in literacy and uplift the communities by way of doing so,” said Claudia Simms, senior administrative officer of TJH and coordinator of the donations.