Guardian Group donates TT$100,000 to hurricane-hit Jamaican schools

Guardian Group has con­tributed TT$100,000 to sup­port schools in west­ern Ja­maica af­fect­ed by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, with the funds ear­marked for re­pairs, learn­ing ma­te­ri­als, and elec­tric­i­ty sup­port for im­pact­ed in­sti­tu­tions.

The con­tri­bu­tion, equiv­a­lent to J$2.3 mil­lion, was pre­sent­ed dur­ing a cheque han­dover cer­e­mo­ny on April 16 at Guardian Life Lim­it­ed, Ja­maica.

The fund­ing came from pro­ceeds gen­er­at­ed from SHINE 2025, Guardian Group’s char­i­ty walk and run event held in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which raised more than TT$780,000 for chil­dren and chil­dren’s char­i­ties across the re­gion.

In a re­lease sent to Guardian Me­dia, Group Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer, Pres­i­dent of Guardian Shared Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, and Chair­man of the Guardian Group Foun­da­tion, Greer Quan said the ini­tia­tive aimed to help schools re­sume nor­mal op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing the hur­ri­cane.

“This do­na­tion is about stand­ing with Ja­maica’s com­mu­ni­ties as they re­cov­er and re­build. Through SHINE, we are proud to con­tribute J$2.3 mil­lion to sup­port schools in restor­ing safe and func­tion­al learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments. These are prac­ti­cal in­ter­ven­tions that will make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence for stu­dents and teach­ers,” Quan said.

The funds are be­ing dis­trib­uted through the Na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Trust in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ja­maica’s Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Skills, Youth, and In­for­ma­tion.

Sup­port will go to­ward shared pho­to­copy­ing ser­vices, gen­er­a­tors to re­store the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply, and mi­nor in­fra­struc­tur­al re­pairs at af­fect­ed schools.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion Trust, La­toya Har­ris-Ghartey, said schools con­tin­ue to face dis­rup­tions months af­ter Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

“In the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, schools have faced sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tions to teach­ing and learn­ing. This in­ter­ven­tion di­rect­ly sup­ports pri­or­i­ty in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing Frome Tech­ni­cal High School and oth­ers with­in its clus­ter, en­abling a more rapid re­turn to sta­ble op­er­a­tions and re­in­forc­ing the sys­tem’s ca­pac­i­ty to with­stand fu­ture shocks,” Har­ris-Ghartey said.

State Min­is­ter in Ja­maica’s Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Skills, Youth and In­for­ma­tion, Rho­da Moy Craw­ford, de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as an ex­am­ple of re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion sup­port­ing re­cov­ery ef­forts.

“This ini­tia­tive re­flects a mod­el of col­lab­o­ra­tion that strength­ens re­cov­ery out­comes. It demon­strates how re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions can align re­sources to ad­dress im­me­di­ate needs while sup­port­ing longer-term de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives with­in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor,” Craw­ford said.

The lat­est con­tri­bu­tion fol­lows a pre­vi­ous US$312,000 do­na­tion made by the Guardian Group Char­i­ta­ble Foun­da­tion in No­vem­ber 2025 to sup­port hur­ri­cane re­cov­ery and re­build­ing ef­forts in Ja­maica fol­low­ing the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.