By Roy Sanford, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE NON-GOVERNMENT organisation, Jamaica AIDS Support (JAS) got a much-needed boost yesterday, when it received $1 million from the National Commercial Bank (NCB). The money was handed over in a ceremony at the NCB's western office in Montego Bay. The bank also donated $250,000 to the Good Shepherd Foundation, the only hospice for HIV/AIDS persons in western Jamaica.
The money came at a time when the ailing JAS is facing closure because of the lack of funding. According to Christine English, director of social marketing and fund-raising at JAS, the organisation was being funded by the Royal Netherlands Government but that funding comes to an end today.
English said the organisation has to seek the necessary funding to remain open.
"At this point in time, we are still struggling to find the money for us to stay open," English asserted. She said if the money is not provided, the organisation has no choice but to size down and run some of its programmes on a skeletal staff.
English said the JAS survives on a monthly budget of $1.3 million.
"It (the NCB donation) will help us move forward for a short time and maybe give us a little breathing space to put in place some form of sustainability," she remarked.
She thanked NCB for the generous offer and appealed to the general public for greater support.
"We have to recognise that HIV/AIDS is a Jamaican problem, a Jamaican issue and it cannot be a problem of foreign donors," she said. "With two per cent of the Jamaican population being HIV-positive, civil society must take responsibility since we cannot depend on foreign donor agencies all the time."
