Education, training dominate Michael Manley Award shortlist

Empowerment of communities through education and training has emerged as the dominant feature of four projects shortlisted for the 11th annual Michael Manley Award for community self-reliance and the seventh annual Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ) award, which will be presented at the Little Theatre on August 2.

The Michael Manley Award, comprising a $200,000 cash prize and a beautiful bronze resin trophy sculpted by Kay Sullivan, is earned by the project that best exemplifies the Jamaican traditions of self-help and community cooperation. The EFJ award - $100,000 cash and a commemorative plaque - goes to the project with the best credentials in environmental conservation or child survival and development.

The following are the shortlisted projects vying for the awards:

• Children First, St Catherine

Based in Spanish Town, St Catherine, Children First had its genesis in the Save the Children Fund, United Kingdom (UK). It succeeded the Spanish Town Marginalised Youth project, which the UK agency had sustained for eight years before expanding its work in the Caribbean in 1997. However, while the Save the Children project was essentially welfare-oriented, since its inception, Children First has stressed empowerment of children, their parents and their wider communities, mainly through skills training and development.

Through its remedial education, skills training and career-counselling programmes, Children First has equipped hundreds of young men and women to take their place in the labour market and in the world of entrepreneurship. Its vocational skills training includes barbering, cosmetology, photo-graphy, videography, house-keeping, information technology and customer service.

It also addresses life-skills acquisition in such areas as health and the environment, and conducts its life-skills education largely through the performing arts. The agency's outreach has spread beyond the parish of St Catherine to several parts of Jamaica, even as far away as St James, and spans all generations. Most of its instructors - volunteer and professional - are graduates of its training programmes.

• Rowlandsfield Multi-resource Community Centre, St Thomas

This project began in September 2005 with information technology training of the nine executive members of the then newly established Rowlandsfield Com-munity Development Council Benevolent Society. The benevolent society was the community's response to mushrooming un-employment resulting from contraction of St Thomas's sugar and banana industries.

The information technology training was followed by the start of income-generating production of handicraft items, which, in turn, transformed into the manufacture of soft toys used in part as props in the community's early childhood education. Some 40 persons now benefiting from classes in information technology are also taught English and mathematics through the voluntary contributions of a number of professional teachers and the involvement of the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning.

Other aspects of the project include fruit-juice processing and a graphic design and screen-printing component that produces wearable art.

• Spring Village Development & Training Project, St Catherine

Established in 1998, this project was the outcome of a series of monthly discussions involving a wide cross section of the citizens of Spring Village who planned and implemented a programme to empower the inhabitants of the village through training and development. The hub of the comprehensive integrated community-development programme is the Spring Village Training Institute (SVTI), which conducts after-school training, sports, marching band and environmental projects and supports students' attendance in schools up to the tertiary level.

The SVTI headquarters is located on land donated by Jamaica Broilers, with shipping containers being an integral element of the structure. The curriculum includes life skills as well as academic education and vocational training. The programme is sustained by income-generating subprojects, and its participants have achieved higher levels of education and certification and enjoy elevated levels of employment and income.

The programme involves the children of three basic schools in cultural activities and prepares older children for after-school practice of the performing arts and participation in the annual National Festival of the Arts. It also engages the community in tree-planting, solid-waste disposal, sanitation and beautification of the environment.

• Sturge Town Integrated Sustainable Development Project, St Ann

In accordance with the rules of the competition, this project, having won the Michael Manley Award for Community Self-Reliance five years ago, has become eligible this year for re-entry in the competition.

The elements that earned the award in 2005 - mainly the funding and construction of a building that houses a postal agency, a health centre, a library and senior citizens' facility - in addition to a monument commemorating Sturge Town's history as the second free village in Jamaica, street signs throughout the village, a basic school and the beginnings of an organic garden, and community tourism, remain in place.

The Community Development Council has now erected a basic-school building on the grounds of the Baptist church that previously accommodated the school in its main building.

It has also created a wall of fame that celebrates prominent citizens of Sturge Town, many of whom have lived long lives in keeping with a local tradition.

Also initiated is cottage-style commercial exploitation of the natural resources of the community, including agro-industrial products and the bottling of water from the Marley Spring, reputed to be the source of the longevity of Sturge Town's inhabitants.