It takes 75 to keep hope alive
St Patrick’s Foundation launches online campaign
THE ST Patrick’s Foundation recently launched an online campaign to raise funds to support the skills-training initiatives of the Foundation. The campaign, titled It Takes 75 to Keep Hope Alive, is being powered by the isupportjamaica.com website of The Jamaica National Group.
“It Takes 75 to Keep Hope Alive is targeted to garner some US$7,500 to ensure that our students can continue participating in the one-year training programmes being conducted at the Christ the Redeemer and St Margaret’s human resource centres,” explained Sandrina Davis, general manager of the St Patrick’s Foundation.
“These one-year programmes are designed to teach participants skills they need to work in a company or operate a small business themselves,” Davis explained.
She said that over the past two years, the attrition rate in the programmes climbed to some 10 per cent as students were unable to pay for transportation, find lunch money, or purchase uniforms and books to attend the classes.
“Although we have kept the tuition fees very low, we need support to ensure that when students start the learning process, they can continue to the end,” she said, noting that “this was their chance to show their families and friends that they have what it takes to contribute to Jamaica being the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business”.
The skills-training institutions, Christ the Redeemer and St Margaret’s human resource centres, were established in the early 1990s. There is also an HEART/NTA-registered vocational training school located in Seaview Gardens offering commercial food preparation, cosmetology and customer engagement operations training.