Mountain View, Clan Carthy High School to benefit of the LASCO Chin Foundation

Hosts successful fundraising gala in Miramar

KINGSTON, JAMAICA: The recently launched LASCO Chin Foundation has identified Mountain View Primary and Clan Carthy High schools in east Kingston as the first beneficiaries of its Sustainable Socio-Economic Intervention (SSI) Model©. 

Parents living in Mountain View and their children, who attend Clan Carthy High, are set to benefit from the Foundation’s SSI Schooling Support Programme. The Schooling Support Programme that sets out to help youth to succeed in school with skilled, intensive personalised support. 

Clan Carthy High School will also benefit from the Foundation’s Quality Assurance Programmes. These initiatives seek to give students intensive, high quality support, promote involvement in sports and cultural activities as well as increase the level of awareness among youths about environmental protection, climate change and resilience through the LASCO Releaf Environmental Awareness Programme initiative. 

The first beneficiaries of the LASCO Chin Foundation were announced at its Inaugural Benefit Gala at the Miramar Cultural Centre in Florida on Sunday, November 18. The Gala was well supported by approximately 650 members of the Jamaican and Caribbean Diaspora in South Florida.

Former Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Honourable PJ Patterson, who delivered the keynote address at the Benefit Gala commended the LASCO Chin Foundation for taking a targeted approach to investing in the nation’s youth. 

“Very often, Foundations are spread so thin, and they cover so many worthwhile areas of need, that you don’t get the results which are desired. And, I think the Foundation is to be warmly applauded for picking on an area where nobody can question that it is critical to our nation,” Patterson said. 

Making reference to Vision 2030, which aims for a safe and prosperous island, Patterson said to achieve that objective, stakeholders much invest in the nation’s children to attain the goal of sustainable development. 

“We have to a secure path for our vulnerable youth, and we have to put in place training systems to prepare our workers and potential workers to view entrepreneurship as a secure option,” Patterson said. 

In extending his endorsement for the valuable initiative, the former prime minister encouraged Jamaicans in the Diaspora to support projects that seek to develop Jamaica’s youth.

“We really need to activate our youth as change agents of future growth and development and not see them as just passive tools of resistance,” Patterson said.

He went on to note that the early and sustainable intervention for children and youth is critical to breaking the vicious cycle of generational poverty and crime.

According to the Hon Lascelles A Chin, founder and executive chairman of the LASCO Affiliated Companies, the mission of the Foundation is to provide the needed early intervention to help Jamaica’s at-risk youth to break the cycle of poverty and crime through encouragement to become productive members of society and successful entrepreneurs.

“When I reflect on the disruption of our way of life in Jamaica, by crime, LASCO must be a part of a solution that is sustainable for decades,” Chin said.

LASCO Chin Foundation’s CEO, Professor Rosalea Hamilton told the Gala: “We intend to target children that are most vulnerable, and most likely to end up in a life of crime without support, and we will give them financial, nutritional, mentorship, and professional support. Basic scholarships, covering fees, books, supplies, uniform, shoes and physical education gears, will provide core needed support for each targeted child.”

In outlining the plans, Professor Rosalea Hamilton, said that in addition to the SSI Schooling Support Programme, at-risk youths in Mountain View and in other communities across Jamaica will benefit from the Foundation’s two-phased SSI Entrepreneurship Programme, which seeks to address the main barriers to entrepreneurial success for at-risk youths, that is, access to assets, especially education, training, and advice relevant to setting up a business.

In Phase one, the youngsters will benefit from intensive entrepreneurial training, while earning money in a highly incentivised street-vending programme for at least six months. While in Phase two, the Foundation will provide a longer-term intervention.

“We know that many businesses fail after three years and when you are at-risk, the probability of failure is even higher. So, we feel we have to support them for more than three years, up to 10 years, if necessary,” Hamilton said, adding that the Foundation will help the aspiring entrepreneurs with their business models and plans, registration, marketing, accounting among other services.

The LASCO Chairman also charged the Jamaicans living abroad to join the movement to save a life from crime.

“We can do it. We must do it. You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you,” Chin said.

The LCF will use the innovative Sustainable Socio-Economic Intervention (SSI)© model to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and crime for the most disenfranchised youths living in high crime communities.

The model aims to battle the core problems of poverty — with special emphasis on at-risk youths who have a high likelihood of exposure to the criminal justice system and/or involvement in crime — and deficiencies in the quality of services (solutions) offered to the youth in key areas such as education, health care, crime prevention, sports, music, culture and climate change awareness and resilience.

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