This is a round up of top news stories surrounding events that affect the voluntary sector and our member agencies.
Council Chair Selected as Eisenhower Fellow
Saffrey Brown, Chairman of the Council of Voluntary Social Services (CVSS) and co-founder and head of innovation at The Leap Co has been selected as one of 25 leaders to participate in the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowships’ Regional Programme in 2019.
According to a recent Gleaner report, Brown emerged the representative for Jamaica from a highly competitive pool of invited applicants across Latin America and the Caribbean, said Sandra Glasgow, chair of the local nominating committee. The programme brings together exceptional leaders ages 32-45 from a variety of professional fields to the US for intensive, individualised fellowships. Read More
Pensioners Granted Time Extension to Submit Certificates
Government of Jamaica pensioners will have until the end of July to complete and hand in their life certificates to the Accountant General’s Department (AGD), a report from the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) has stated.
Director of Communication and Customer Relations at the AGD, Tanisha Weir Grant, told the JIS News that the AGD will be sending out life certificates one month earlier than before to give pensioners two months to return the documents . According to the report, the new policy measure will be implemented this month [May], with certificates being dispatched at the end of May 2019, to be returned at the end of July.
4-H Clubs Recognises Winners of Climate Smart Technology Competition
Guy’s Hill High School in St. Catherine has emerged winner of the Jamaica 4-H Clubs Climate Smart Technology Competition, a JIS report revealed recently.
Herbert Morrison Technical High in St. James and Manning’s School in Westmoreland, copped the second and third places, respectively. The teams were presented with book vouchers valued at $5,000, as well as trophies and climate change literature, during the recognition ceremony held on May 21 at the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) office in Kingston. Read the Full Report here.
Trash Tournament Nets 11,000 Pounds Trash from Kingston Harbour
In Environment news, twelve luxury and sport fishing boats who participated in Thursday’s inaugural Kingston Harbour Trash tournament, collected over 11,000 pounds of trash and said they barely scraped the surface of the garbage still left in the sea, a Gleaner report stated.
In newspaper reports on the event, organiser of the event, Brandon McKoy lamented over the massive amounts of appliances waste netted from the sea by the tournament fishers last week and called for better disposal systems and household waste management practices to prevent this kind of waste from ending up in the sea. He noted that the initiative was not the solution but was hopeful that it had brought awareness to the problem. Bianca Bovell of Team Mama Mia told the Gleaner that most of the trash were in the mangroves.
The one-day initiative which was created to capture some of the marine debris littering the ocean surface received overwhelming support from fishers and onlookers. The top three finishers Mama Mia, with 1,988 pounds, took top honours over Team Caribbean Maritime Institute, with 1,354 lbs, and Integrity, with 1,141 lbs of trash. Read the FULL REPORT here.
In the Blogs
Blogger, Emma Lewis, writing in the Gleaner’s Social Impact Blog, calls on the society to pay more attention and start listening to the voices of youth activists. She highlights a few young changemakers who are making social impact with their causes, and notes that they should be mentored and encouraged in their endeavours. Check out Emma’s Post here.
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