Chinese community donates $1m to Howard Cooke Primary’s recovery

WESTERN BUREAU:

The Howard Cooke Primary School in Montego Bay, which had its furniture, equipment and vital records destroyed when mud, debris and floodwaters associated with Hurricane Melissa devastated the institution, got a major boost in their recovery plans yesterday, thanks to a $1-million donation from the Chinese community.

The contribution was handed over by Ziping Chen, chairman of LCH Development Limited, developers of The Pinnacle, who noted that thedonation reflects the Chinese community’s commitment to Jamaica and its education sector.

“We are here at another school that has been badly damaged by the hurricane to lend our support by donating $1 million to cushion the challenges both students and teachers are facing with since the hurricane,” Chen told The Gleaner following the presentation.

“I am Jamaican. I am doing this for my country – one love. We have done this for several schools and I will still do some more,” he added, referencing the financial contribution made to other schools impacted by the hurricane.

Dave Scott, the principal of Howard Cooke Primary School, said the institution suffered widespread destruction when it became inundated by the flood waters.

“Melissa threw a lot of carnage on us. We had mud and floodwaters which destroyed equipment and furniture,” said Scott . “All our office furniture, printers and other equipment were totally damaged. We had to change a lot of students’ furniture. Luckily, we received student furniture from the Ministry of Education, but we haven’t gotten any for staff.”

According to Scott, teachers have been forced to make do with temporary arrangements as the school works to rebuild.

“Right now some of our teachers are sitting on students’ chairs; it’s rather uncomfortable for them. We are in the process of trying to procure teachers’ desks, office furniture and other equipment for printing,” he said. “The flooding also resulted in the loss of critical school records.”

“We actually lost most of our paper-based files due to the flooding. Everything on the lower level of the school plant was flooded and saturated with silt,” he explained. “We lost some amount of desktop and laptop computers during the process.”

Scott said the clean-up effort after the hurricane was quite a costly expenditure.

“We had a clean-up bill of over $2 million. We got some assistance from the ministry on this and we utilised other internal resources to help cover that bill,” he said. “We were one of the schools to reopen the latest. We actually opened on the 12th of January based on the situation.”

SCHOOL ENROLMENT BADLY AFFECTED

Because of the impact the flooding had on the surrounding communities, it has also badly affected the school’s enrolment.

“The school has 42 teachers and prior to Melissa we had 1,025 students. Since Melissa, we are down to 920. Some students migrated overseas, some went to other local schools because quite a number of schools that were open before us got some of our students,” he said.

Scott said the school is still trying to locate a small number of students whose whereabouts remain unknown.

“A very small minority, we are still uncertain of their whereabouts. We have tried via the guidance department to reconnect with these students; however, when our teams visit where they lived, we were told that they have moved out of the area, and in some cases, the parish and there was no address where they are now located,” he explained.

Despite the challenges, Scott said the donation from the Chinese community is most welcomed as it will help the school regain its footing.

“This donation from the Chinese community of Montego Bay will get us back to where we were,” he told The Gleaner. “We need to get back a risograph machine for the printing of examination papers. Printing is expensive, so we definitely need that, along with some furniture for teachers and the office.”

“We are in the process of finalising the digitising of our records. We will still use the paper system, but digitising will help protect our information going forward,” he added.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com