SAJ and Rotary bring wellness to Port Royal

Students at the Caribbean Maritime Institute (CMI), along with residents of the community of Port Royal, received medical attention during a week-long Wellness Tour held on the campus of the CMI last week.

The CMI family and residents received general health check-ups, diabetes screening, hypertension checks as well as optical screening. Some participants also received free medication.

The Wellness Tour is an annual project of the Shipping Association of Jamaica (SAJ), in partnership with the Rotary Club of Liguanea Plains (RCLP), and is in its fifth year. SAJ and RCLP joined with two new Rotary partners for the project - the Rotaract Club of Liguanea Plains and the Rotary Club of Kingston East and Port Royal.

President of the Shipping Association of Jamaica, Roger Hinds, speaking at the opening ceremony, pledged the association's support for the Wellness Tour for years to come.

"The SAJ firmly believes in giving back to the communities it serves as well as the wider society, and wellness has always been at the heart of the association's service," Hinds said.

"The mobile unit which is being used for this tour was purchased by the association and converted into a mobile clinic with the intent to provide medical services to our neighbouring community, Greenwich Town, as well as other communities."

He said the SAJ was pleased that the clinic had grown beyond the Greenwich Town community, and has spread its wings to communities across Jamaica through the partnership with the Rotary Club.

Trevor Riley, president of RCLP, and also the SAJ's general manager, said, "I am proud to be part of this Wellness Tour, the first of five that will take place in this Rotary year.

We have assembled a very dynamic partnership of organisations that, individually have been building communities not just in Jamaica, but regionally and, in some cases, globally."

Marcia Barned, president of the Rotary Club of Kingston East and Port Royal, said her club was pleased to partner with the Rotary family and the SAJ to bring wellness to Port Royal. She used the opportunity to indicate that it was her club's intent to establish a Rotaract Club at the CMI.

Partners for the tour include the Caribbean Maritime Institute, Food For the Poor, the Foundation for International Self Help, SecuriPro, Atlas Security and Marine Haulage, Lannaman and Morris Shipping Limited, Kingston Wharves Limited, attorneys Myers Fletcher and Gordon, auditors PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the Jamaica National Building Society and Supreme Ventures Limited.