Deputy Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Kester Craig, believes that the maintenance of schools and the safety of their infrastructure are needed locally and across the region.
Mr. Craig made this point on Tuesday at the presentation of electrical supplies and fittings to The Ellerslie School. He added that the safety of school children and the resilience of school buildings must also matter.
“The responsibility of building resilience is very weighty and so we have to work with our stakeholders, our partners, to ensure that we are safe. It encompasses the integration of resilience within the primary, secondary, and tertiary curriculum. This is not just by saying it, but it must be integrated into practice, from the nursery level right up to the tertiary level,” he stressed.
The Ellerslie school received $40, 000 in electrical equipment as part of the Model Safe School Programme (MSSP) (Barbados) Costed Action Plan, through collaboration between the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training and CDEMA, with support from the Norway Project.
Principal of The Ellerslie School, Andrea Baptiste, expressed gratitude at her school being chosen to be the beneficiary of the MSSP.
“By giving to our children here at Ellerslie, you’re not only showing how important it is to be philanthropic, but you’re also helping to raise the standards of every single child by making our school’s physical environment more conducive for learning. I am very pleased that our school family has been selected to benefit from this donation of lights and electrical supplies and I welcome your support years from now.
“We’re not taking it lightly at all the fact that you have given us lighting; we are going to benefit,” she stated.
Principal Baptiste added that initiatives such as the MSSP indicate that organisations like CDEMA understand the concept of a global village and that village helps to create the kind of persons that the world needs.
“Let me tell you about a village raising a child, it is not only about the social dimension. It is about every aspect of the child. Our children need to be able to see when they are learning; they need to be able to see the board; they need to be able to see their notes; they need to be able to see their devices, and lighting is indeed extremely important for the learner,” she said.