Director General of the Jamaica Library Service, Mrs. Patricia Roberts, (left) revealed the campaign poster to Ms. Saffrey Brown, General Manager of the JN Foundation at the signing of the Funding Agreement on Wednesday March 28 at the JLS Headquarters.
The Jamaica National Building Society (JN) Foundation, on Wednesday March 28, 2012, signed a Funding Agreement with the Jamaica Library Service (JLS) to assist in supporting the ‘We Likkle but We Tallawah: Parents Reading with Babies and Toddlers’ programme.
The programme, which is endorsed by the National Parenting Support Commission of the Ministry of Education, encourages parents to aid in the education of their children. In order for learning to take place, parental involvement is critical in the learning process in their rudimentary years.
“We really want to thank Jamaica National, through the Foundation, for deciding to come on board with us. And one of the reasons I know they’ve come on board is because it fits in nicely with some of the focus that their organization has in terms of assisting early childhood development, literacy and the whole business of assisting the country in general” said an ecstatic Patricia Roberts, Director General of the JLS. “We certainly look forward to the partnership. Persons who have participated in the programme so far have only good things to say about it. We believe if we get education right at the beginning, we won’t have all the challenges at the end where we’re doing all this remedial work.” she expressed.
The JN Foundation is very much a believer in early childhood education which is why we’ve decided to come on board to support this project. We’ve done a lot with the early childhood education, most recently funding the Rural Family Support Organisation’s Roving Caregivers Programme in Clarendon which seeks to teach parents how to educate their little ones through play.
“Likkle But We Tallawah is a project that is really close to my heart. It was a project that the minute I saw it I recognised that it was something that the JN Foundation would want to be a part of “ said Saffrey Brown, General Manager of the JN Foundation. The JN Foundation believes that the first five years are extremely valuable in the development in education of a child but also a family. We’re very happy to be a part of this project! We always say that it is not the people who get funding from us who are lucky; it’s we who are lucky enough to work with extraordinary organisations. Thank you for giving us that opportunity. We do hope that this is but one of many projects that we will do with the Jamaica Library Service.
Just imagine how grateful our children will be they find out that their parents were instrumental in fostering their education from an early age. In the words of Plato, “Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
Parents! The JN Foundation challenges you to take ACT!ON today, right at this very moment, to give toddler to a bright future!
Mrs. Patricia Cuff, Storyteller and former Senior Director, Jamaica Library Service demonstrates how parents can stimulate their children by reading age appropriate books. Mrs. Cuff was a guest presenter at the launch of the ‘Parents Reading to Babies and Toddlers’ Project which was held in Tiny Tots, Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library on May 30, 2009.