Office of the Prime Minister

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The Hanbury Home for Children in Manchester has received an upgraded library, with computers and other educational items, from the Davis Projects for Peace, a United States-based foundation.

The updated $900,000 (US$10,000) facility was made possible through a recommendation made by Jamaican born academic at Howard University,

Dr. Grace Virtue. She encouraged two of her students to seek funding from the foundation to do a project at the Home, as part of their studies.

Florence Maher, one of the two Howard students, said the educational software will reinforce the children's in-school learning, and make working on a computer fun and friendly.

"To ensure the long-term sustainability of the project, we are bequeathing $90,000 (US$1,000), under the Rotary Club of Mandeville, to provide for improvements, repairs or other needs related to the computers. With this money, the lab can stay up and running for al least two years," she said at the handing over ceremony at the institution on Friday (August 28).

Manager of the Home, Major Rudolf Richards, told JIS News that the computers will help the children manage school assignments with more efficiency, as they had being using the sole computer belonging to the office.

He said that the Home has some bright youngsters, and who would benefit from the equipment in terms of their school achievements.

"My whole life has been spent helping these children have a better life. They come here with almost everything against them, and the idea is to see that they can be given a chance, other than that they had known prior to coming here," he added.

The other student who worked on the project was Adam Kummer. It was done in partnership with the Rotary Club of Mandeville. The Home has 70 residents, but has a capacity for 79.

In its third year, Davis Projects for Peace, is an invitation to undergraduates at the American colleges and universities in the Davis United World College Scholars Programme to design grassroots projects that they implement during the summer. The projects judged to be the most promising and do-able are funded at $10,000 each. The objective is to encourage and support motivated youths to create and tryout their own ideas for building peace.

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