Foundation in USA Donates 50 Computers to Rural Schools

Fifty computers were recently donated to Jamaican schools by the Virginia Jamaica Education Exchange Foundation (VJEEF).
With this donation, more than 400 computers have been distributed to schools in rural Jamaican communities by that organization since the launch of its computer programme in Clarendon, in October 2000.
Some 3,000 Jamaican students are expected to benefit from the programme, designed to give Jamaican students, especially in rural communities, access to computer technology learning.
Already, students at Thompson Town Primary School in Clarendon are involved in computer technology learning, as that institution has been furnished with computer equipment.
Students at Edwin Allen High School in that parish have also been the beneficiaries of VJEEF’s computer exchange programme. The reading laboratory at that institution, established some 10 years ago, was revitalized and re-opened with upgraded equipment installed, after a brief closure.
Founder of the VJEEF, Beryl Walters-Riley, told JIS News that as the computer programme “continues to expand, more students are benefiting and they will become more involved with school work and become literate, bringing enthusiasm for learning into their homes”. The ripple effect, she added, was that other family members would now be computer literate, bridging the generation gap in information technology.
While members of the Virginia Jamaica Foundation are seeking channels to expand the programme, a liaison committee has been set up in Jamaica to co-ordinate the distribution of the computer equipment as they arrive in the island. The VJEEF was launched five years ago with the aim to enhance educational, cultural and economic exchanges between Jamaica and the United States of America.