The new Little Angels Early Childhood Development Centre school building serves 84 children in Tawes Pen, Spanish Town, St. Catherine, built by Food for the Poor. - contributed photos

Despite economic challenges worldwide, Food For The Poor, Jamaica, is forging ahead with a programme that helps Jamaican schools improve their physical infrastructure and enhance students' ability to learn.

The Early Childhood Education Act sets minimum standards that all early-childhood education institutions in Jamaica are mandated to meet in order to receive government's approval to provide education to the nation's children. Many of these standards relate to the state of physical facilities, which pose significant challenges to scores of basic and infant schools faced with huge resource constraints.

Government resources are limited, as evidenced by the Ministry of Education's 2009-2010 Budget. This year, about $12.5 million has been allocated for early-childhood deve-lopment while $2.1 billion is set aside for recurrent expenditure. While the amount for capital-development programmes at the country's infant and basic schools this year is significantly more than the $1 million spent by government in the last financial year, it will still be inadequate to meet the infrastructure needs of state-run and government-aided early-childhood facilities.

This is where Food For The Poor, Jamaica's foremost charity, has come to the rescue. The organisation has developed and embarked on a programme to assist many schools, some which were threatened by closure.

Through its projects department, the organisation has built new schools, upgraded and repaired facilities of existing ones, provided much-needed furniture and other supplies, and modernised essential infrastructure at basic, primary, and secondary schools islandwide.

Since 2000, Food For The Poor has constructed, upgraded and repaired nearly 100 schools. In the past four years, the charity has built 22 fully equipped basic schools and has also made substantial improvements and repairs to another 17. Repairs and improvements have included constructing libraries, classrooms, kitchens, cafeterias and repairing roofs.

One recent beneficiary of the school-improvement programme was Hall's Delight Basic School in St Andrew. There, Food For The Poor constructed a new building complete with classrooms, an office, bathrooms, water tanks and a kitchen.

Chairman of Food for the Poor, Jamaica, and a past student of the school, Roman Catholic priest, Father Burchell McPherson, summed up the motivation for the gift: "I am a product of this school and this community and I wanted to find a way to give back, especially knowing that without education, we can't have a good nation."

"We finally have our own school building," declared principal Marjorie Thomas.

Health and safety risks

Previously, classes were held in the Hall's Delight Pilgrim church.

"Our teaching aids and educational materials would get destroyed because of the constant moving-in and moving-out process, plus we only had one bathroom which posed health and safety risks for the children," she added.

Other recipients have expressed appreciation for similar physical development assistance.

Lillian Brown, the principal of the Monica McKenzie Family Counselling Basic School in Kingston, believes that the new location and new buildings received for her 60 students are all part of God's divine plan: "Some years ago, I prayed earnestly to God for help because the previous school had cracks in the walls, improper ventilation, no play area and it was extremely close to the streets, which was hazardous for the children."

For the Little Angels Early Childhood Development Centre in St Catherine, imminent closure and the displacement of 84 children were averted by the timely intervention of the charity organisation.At Windsor Castle All-Age in Portland, 600 students have benefited from the construction of a reading laboratory and library.