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- House Students from two Previous Schools in New Ground Clarendon

On Thursday July 9, 2010 Scotiabank Jamaica and Food For The Poor officially handed over the newly built Alexandria Hope Basic School, to the community of New Ground Clarendon. The school was constructed on April 16 by Scotia Volunteers and Food for the Poor in an intense one day work venture on April 16, 2010 in New Ground. The school will house 50 students who were previously from two basic schools which were housed in two extremely dilapidated structures.

The new early childhood facility was built to specification from the Ministry of Education’s Early Childhood Commission and includes a spacious schoolroom, principal’s office, sick bay, kitchen and two bathrooms. The students will also have the benefit of a new vegetable garden as one of its new features built by the volunteers to allow the school to start a lunch feeding programme. Courts Jamaica Limited was another vital partner in the initiative through the donation of stove, refrigerator and bed for the principal’s residence.

This structure is a massive improvement over the previous ‘schoolrooms’ where they were housed in the cellar of the principal’s home and a changing room in the community centre. Teachers and students in the changing room deal with a leaking roof, no windows, no doors and rough concrete floors which left the children with several bruises when they fall. Meanwhile the students who attend “school” in the cellar of principal’s home are in a structure that’s not very sturdy, limited in space, and without proper sanitary convenience. This is all because both schools lost their original structures to Hurricane Ivan back in 2004. Despite six years passing, the students are still without a schoolhouse and the teachers of the school were trying to make do…until now.

The team of over 140 workers also constructed teacher’s cottage on the same complex. The local group effort was aided with Scotia Volunteers from the Bank’s International Corporate and Commercial Banking (ICCB) in Toronto, Canada. The overseas team were integral in the process from the conceptualisation, funding through to construction stages.

The Alexandria Hope Basic School is part of Scotiabank Bright Future Program, which gives staff members the opportunity to undertake community outreach projects which will benefit children in their communities.

The Alexandria Basic School was first opened in 1993, while Hope Basic School has been operating since 1987.