Despite the challenges and restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to online learning, Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) Junior Councillors, Reajean Bennett and Abigail Wehby, are determined to shine despite the current conditions. Reajean, the Junior Councillor for the Springfield Division, recently won the title of ‘Ms. Advocator’ at the St. Hugh’s High School...

Children under the care of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) are now benefiting from improved psychotherapy intervention, through a recently introduced programme. Under the Trauma Informed Care Project, in which more than 40 of the agency’s staff members were trained to deliver the services developed by the United States-based Trauma Stress Institute (TSI), children with trauma-related issues...

Former ward of the State and Inaugural Identity (ID) Pioneers grant recipient for 2021, Newtana Jackson, says her determination to succeed can be attributed to the mentors who guided her throughout the years she spent at Maxfield Park Children’s Home, The 19-year-old young woman, who received the grant of $180,000 on March 2 from ID Pioneers, has her eyes set...

Joan Martin did not set out to become a foster parent. She tells JIS News that she was unexpectedly thrust into the role when she agreed to provide temporary lodgings to a little boy whose mother was unable to care for him. “The mother was having problems and she wanted somebody who could provide a safe environment for her son,”...

Nakeba Brown was only 10 years old when her mother died at age 29, leaving nine children who had to be rescued by the then Child Development Agency (CDA), now the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA). The trauma of losing her mother at a tender age, being separated from her brothers and sisters and living with strangers, took...

More than 3,000, three-dimensional (3-D) face shields have been donated to the public healthcare sector since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Jamaica, through PreeLabs Limited, an automated solutions and product development company headed by young entrepreneur, Yekini Wallen-Bryan. In a bid to aid Jamaica in tackling the crisis, the 26-year-old Chief Executive Officer (CEO), along with four other...

Eighteen-year-old Tyrone Darby is determined to fulfil his dream of becoming a software engineer, despite the challenges that come with living with multiple disabilities. “My journey into this world has always been one that is filled with many obstacles,” the Knox Community College student tells JIS News. The Manchester-born teenager was diagnosed with cerebral palsy shortly after birth, after his...

The Jamaica 4-H Clubs will be introducing new initiatives and programmes in 2021 to engage more young Jamaicans in the business of agriculture. Executive Director of the organisation, Dr. Ronald Blake, tells JIS News that the first quarter of the New Year, between January and March, will be spent training 500 youth farmers and providing them with agricultural inputs. In...

The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) South East Region is undertaking an initiative aimed at empowering boys in the childcare system. Dubbed ‘Saving Our Boys’, the one-year programme, launched on July 25, is in response to the increasing number of boys in State care who are exhibiting deviant behaviours. It involves partnership with the Kiwanis Club of Young...