Grant Funded Projects

This is a project of Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) which was grant funded in 2013 to pursue their research at select hospitals in Jamaica to find out the overall cost to treat patients who suffered from violence related injuries (VRI) and were victims of road traffic crashes (RTC).

The Bethel Town Agricultural Co-operative has embarked upon an agro-processing venture that will generate employment for its members and a steady stream of income for the co-operative through its Bethel Town Sorrel Processing Factory.

The Factory currently produces bag juices, chutney and jam.

The Cooperative applied to the JN Foundation’s grant programme to purchase a refrigerated truck to keep their products cool and to maintain quality upon delivery.
The 20-foot refrigerated truck and standby generator presented to the Bethel Town Agricultural Cooperative by the JN Foundation will help to keep the sorrel drink produced at the sorrel processing plant cool, no matter the temperature outside.

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund and the World Bank have also made significant contributions to the  construction of the processing plant .

The growing potential of the rabbit meat market has not escaped the Spring Village Foundation in rural St. Catherine. A $300,000 grant from the JN Foundation has moved that foundation’s rabbit rearing project from possibility to reality, and has provided capital to establish a hatchery, construct hutches for the rabbits and to provide 20 young persons with a combination of part-time and full time jobs.

The project is operated by the Spring Village Youth Club and gives participants skills training in a new and potentially lucrative industry, exposure to business management fundamentals and an opportunity to generate an income. With an overall target of 20 at-risk youth to be trained, the expectation is that the trainees are to develop and manage the budding business. Thus far, 12 members of the youth club have been enrolled and are nearing the completion of the level 1 Heart Trust NTA accredited skills- training programme. Twenty-two hutches have been constructed and a stock of 40 rabbits reared.

Yielding to the call from YMCA to raise funds to restore bathroom and pool facilities, JN Foundation provided a grant to support the renovation of the swimming pool facilities at the Kingston YMCA. Due to the centralised location of this facility, it is utilised by many schools and communities. The institution’s pools were in such disrepair that if action was not taken, they faced certain closure by the health authorities.

Right after the pool’s health was restored 20 additional schools in the Kingston and St. Andrew district signed their students up for weekly swimming lessons, this jumping the number of schools from 40 to 60. YMCA Kingston serves as the training ground for numerous National Swimmers for e.g. Alia Atkinson who is the first black person to ever win a World Title in Swimming had her beginnings as a youngster enrolled in the YMCA Speedos.

JN Foundation Grantee, Anclie Gloudon, author, chemist and award-winning botanist, pours the knowledge and passion from his more than five decades of experience in botany and horticulture into the Second Edition of Orchids of Jamaica (Co-Authored by Cicely Tobisch).

Motivated by his passion for the plant, the scientist expects that the process of documentation and research will reveal new species and varieties of endemic and non-indigenous orchids, thereby enriching the body of local knowledge. Already three new species have been discovered on the island. These are the Lepanthes spp; Cymbidium spp; and Oerstedella spp. One of these may be a cultivated plant, which has now made its way into the wild (Cymbidium), while the other two are varieties that were not previously documented as being present in Jamaica. Since the start of the project, Gloudon’s Nursery has also copped the prize for the Best Local Species (Arpophyllum jamaicense) at the Ocho Rios Orchid Society show.

The preservation and presentation of this knowledge, through the JN Foundation funded project, will continue to inspire orchid lovers and others to cultivate the flower that stirs Gloudon’s passion and, to develop their knowledge of it.

The gift of a $5 million autoclave and water softener to the Port Maria Hospital by the JN Foundation has meant that patients from surrounding communities are now able to be treated for a more extensive list of minor surgeries closer to home. An autoclave may not be the first item that springs to mind when one thinks of an operating theatre, however, to conduct procedures without one would not be wise. Sterility of the equipment and environment is of paramount importance to the success of any operation as this equipment allows the team to sanitize the required tools and area of operation.

On average, the hospital serves approximately 113,000 patients, comprising of locals and tourists. It was once the hospital of choice for operations within the region, however, with the passage of time, its facilities slowly deteriorated. The provision of this equipment moves the North East Regional Health Authority one step closer to alleviating this challenge.

The Stella Maris Foundation operates in the community of Grants Pen. The technology training centre was implemented with the goal of increasing income generation within the community. The training provided by the technology training centre will help to increase the employability skills of community members, as well as the capacity of the facility to operate as a call centre.

With the help of JN Foundation and Universal Access Fund, Violence Prevention Alliance established three Learning NetWorks in three communities namely, Yallahs (Morant Bay, St. Thomas), Fairview (Spanish Town, Catherine) and King Street (Spanish Town, St. Catherine).

The main aim of these establishments is to improve the literacy, numeracy and life skills of those students enrolled in the programme by introducing them to internationally acclaimed auto-learning software. The programme was created to uplift communities in which they are located through education and skills set. The facility at King Street is housed at Children First Agency provided training in ornamental fish rearing, a skill which promises to reward favourably if mastered.

Children First is a community-based organisation that uses creative participatory and developmental approaches to provide life-changing programmes for children and adolescents. It was formed in 1997 and has since become the largest organisation of its type in Jamaica. The  Children First Achievement Centre was established to reduce the number of children out of the school system and in the labour market. In 2015, fifteen of the nineteen children being prepared for GNAT examinations were successfully enrolled in the regular school system.

Rise Life Management focuses on building the capacity of youths living in volatile communities in Kingston to lead and foster positive change. The main aim of its Inner-City Youth Leadership and Curriculum Design for Behaviour Change Programme is to train the participants in the core areas of leadership, entrepreneurship and planning sustainable projects. At the end of this project, youth leaders will be armed with the tools necessary to uplift their community.

The objective of the JN Foundation grant was to assist in providing necessary resources for students to maximise their learning opportunities, thus enabling them to reach their highest potential. Analysis of data on the performance of Dupont Primary & Infant School Grade 3 students showed that, on average, the boys saw an improvement of 9% in Language Arts and a 17% increase in their math grades.  The girls’ grades also improved ,with a 10% improvement in their Language Arts grades and an 11% increase in their math grades.  The Rescue Package will continue their work with the schools for the next three years.

The objective of this JN Foundation grant was to improve the school’s physical environment by helping to renovate the auditorium.

The objective of this JN Foundation grant was to promote the growth and creativity of poets, by mentoring 10 emerging local and international poets in workshops. Seven  new and established writers from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Canada and the United States participated in the retreat.  Thirty-one people visited the exhibit. A compilation of poems written by participants at the Writer’s Retreat was published in an e-book titled Fire Stick.

The Diaspora Youth Connect (DYC) was established to uplift young persons living in volatile communities by teaching them basic entrepreneurial skills. The skills learnt at the workshops hosted by the DYC are expected to put these young persons on the right track and help them to encourage economic growth within their communities.

The May Pen Y’s Men’s Youth Leadership Development was conceptualized out of the idea that youth can use their artistic skills to start their own business and gain employment through the graphical design industry. As a result, 15 young persons (20% vulnerable) were enrolled in the programme, which started in September 2014.

All 15 students completed Phase 1 of the project and will be accredited by HEART Trust/NTA, when the programme is assessed. By the end of this project two students were identified as advanced learners who could go on to assisting the teacher with the delivery of the course to incoming batches.

Jamaica’s classical musical composers may not be as well-known as those of the heart-thumping reggae genre but their legacy is no less rich and complex. The JN Foundation grantee, Music Unites, is re-igniting the interest in the life and work of these extraordinary Jamaicans. By sharing this body of knowledge through a rotating lecture series on musical instruments at select tertiary institutions, Music Unites raises the awareness of these contributors and their work among young musicians.

Thus far over three hundred students have benefitted from the series. At the core of the project however, is the need to address the dearth of information on local composers by researching, cataloguing and documenting their bodies of work. Music Unites has already achieved two major coups. A commitment from the wife of the late Oswald Russell to collate and share her husband’s work has been secured and a probable location of Lloyd Hall’s collection of music has been identified. Discussions with the National Libraries about providing a home for the steadily growing Jamaican classical composer archives have already begun.

The UWI SOLUTIONS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (SODECO) currently seeks to achieve the following:

1. To promote medical and public policy research, analysis, development and education focusing on Jamaica and other developing countries.
2. To serve as a think tank, capable of identifying high value global issues and formulating practicable, implementable policies and programmes.
3. To promote and develop methods and means by which the Company may raise money for the development and implementation of the objects of the Company and for any other purposes approved by the Directors.
4. To accept grants, gifts, donations, and bequests of money and property for the purposes of the Company and to undertake and execute any trusts in respect of any such money or property and to solicit and appeal for any such grants, gifts, donations or bequests as aforesaid which the Directors may from time to time regard as being beneficial and advantageous to the Company.
5. To promote research at and for the ultimate benefit of the University of the West Indies for which purpose the University of the West Indies shall initially fund or cause to be funded three (3) core posts and shall provide appropriate space at the Mona Campus to allow the Company to undertake its objects.

The objective of the JN Foundation grant is to improve the quality of care for people with chronic diseases, by developing a sustainable business model that would facilitate treatment and monitoring.

The primary aim of the Water Sanitation Project is to improve the sanitary conditions for children through the eradication of pit latrines in primary schools across Jamaica. Ever since they embarked on a mission to lessen the number of schools that only have pit latrines installed, Food for the Poor has successfully provided sanitation upgrades in a total of 65 schools; the last three were installed with the financial help of the JN Foundation in 2015. The three schools that benefitted from this initiative are Penlyne Castle All Age (St. Thomas), Woburn Lawn Primary (St. Thomas) and Camberwell Primary (St. Mary).