From left: Board members of the Robinson Smiles and Hope Foundation - Maria Bradshaw; Pamela Harewood and Anthony Layne; Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education Dr. Rommell Springer; Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson; personal assistant to businesswoman Shelly Williams, Akhnaten Burrowes; and Executive Chair of Haigh Communications Inc. Joy-Ann Haigh, as the special tablets were handed over.
Several students with special needs are being equipped with the tools necessary to ensure they can participate in online classes.
Twenty-one specially designed desktop tablets were presented to the Ministry of Education on Tuesday morning by the Robinson Smiles and Hope Foundation, and businesswoman Shelly Williams for visually impaired students of the Ann Hill and Irving Wilson schools.
Speaking on behalf of the founders of the charity, Julia Robinson and her husband, Dr. Alfred Robinson, who were unable to attend the hand-over ceremony due to current Covid-19 travel restrictions, Board member and journalist Maria Bradshaw, said the effort had come about due to Julia’s desire to help children who may have difficulties in affording devices with suitable large screens.
She therefore set up a Go Fund Me page with the aim of raising US$1 000, but surpassed this, receiving instead US$1 500 in donations due to warm responses to the venture.
“She partnered with a Google company and as a result, she was able to source these devices. As you can see, they are not the regular small devices, they are pretty big, they are desktops and they are very user friendly. Obviously, we had some difficulties getting them to Barbados. There are actually 21 of them. Julia reached out on Facebook, asking for any businessperson who could assist her and Shelly Williams readily agreed. So this was a great partnership between the Foundation and Shelly Williams – because without her help these devices probably wouldn’t be here so soon,” Bradshaw expressed.
Thanking the charity for their donation, Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson admitted the technological devices were very welcome as some students with special needs had not yet participated in any online classes, but instead were physically taken work by principals and teachers.
She also outlined the intention of the ministry to attain some Apple iPads, which have more accessibility for such students as well as several MI5 devices for those students without Internet or Wi-Fi accessibility.
“So we are always looking at ways to make sure the special needs children are not left behind,” Adamson explained.