Inside a bustling Coronation Market in downtown Kingston, 36-year-old vendor, Nicola Reid, sits quietly catching up on her reading. She has a routine. At least three times weekly, just after making the day’s sale, she packs up her merchandise, heads to a nearby bathroom inside the market where she takes a shower, before going off to the Jamaica Foundation...

Inside a workshop on Charles Street, downtown Kingston, a battered looking pedestal fan fights off heat as Kimarley Tomblinson and his young apprentices work against the clock, crafting shoes from leather. When JIS News visited Tomblinson, there were only days to go before the start of the new school year. The orders for school shoes were pouring in and the...

It was her resolve to prove to her children, one is never too old to achieve anything, that led high-school dropout Veronica Robinson-Malcolm back to the classroom two years ago in pursuit of her secondary school-leaving certificate. Not only did she attain the certificate that eluded her three decades ago when she became a teenage mother, but she also copped...

All it took was a homemade “one pop” gun for Dave Sewell to earn the respect of some persons in the St. Catherine community of Lakes Pen, and the ultimate title of ‘Area Don’ during the 1990s. Over two decades later, the former Lakes Pen don looks back with much regret, revealing that he paid the “ultimate price” for his...

By the age of 17, Anthony Currie was deep into a life of crime, slinging guns in sections of Kingston. At age 18, he was on the police most wanted list for murder, and at 20 he had resigned to the idea that he would take his last breath at the St. Catherine Adult Correctional Centre where he was sentenced...

In the heart of the old capital, Spanish Town, two former death row inmates, a social worker and approximately 25 other persons convene a meeting behind closed doors. As they do every Friday morning, the men and women, trained by the Peace Management Initiative (PMI) as violence interrupters, are knocking heads to come up with measures to stem the violence in sections...

Randy and Davian McLaren had dreams of starting their own business, and so the two brothers set out to realise that dream in 2015 working from their veranda in Rockfort, East Kingston. “One old sewing machine and big dreams; that was all we had,” Randy, the older of the two brothers, told JIS while recounting the story of how the...

The celebration of our 54th anniversary of Independence is being led by the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport under the primary theme ‘Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright’, a line from Hon. Robert Nesta Marley’s ‘One Love’ song. Independence will also be celebrated through fashion with the theme ‘Wear It Gold and Strike It Bold’. Throughout the season,...

In 1989 the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recommended that July 11 be observed globally as World Population Day to draw attention to population issues.In observance of World Population Day this year, the UNDP is focusing on teenage girls and the enormous challenges many face, such as the burden of being forced into early marriage and...