Second City gets international academy
Published:Thursday | September 7, 2017 | 12:00 AMJanet Silvera
WESTERN BUREAU:
The fastest-growing city in the Caribbean - Montego Bay - is to get its first private international school.
The team behind it are Lisa Lake, formerly of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, her husband, Yoni Epstein, who is in the business process outsourcing sector; Isiaa Madden, architect of Design HQ, merchants, Ranjeet and Madhu Mahtani; Mark McConnell of Orijin and his wife Jaime; Jill Stewart and Marc Rollins.
Led by philanthropist Adam Stewart, who has received the blessing of the woman behind Rose Hall's SOS Children's Village, Michele Rollins, plans for the Rose Hall Academy and International School were unveiled last Thursday, in the ballroom of the historic 18th century great house that carries the name of the community.
Launched in harmony with the Spanish Jamaica Foundation (SPJF), Stewart says the Spanish will be working on football programmes with Rose Hall Development company, which donated 13 acres of the Greenfield land, (about 1000 feet above sea level) overlooking the coastline of Montego Bay.
NEED FOR SCHOOL
"A school that many of us who live in Montego Bay and put business enterprise here have recognised the need for," Stewart told the media, between enjoying some of the most delicious servings of lamb chops, escoveitch fish fillet, wontons in shot glasses, mozzarella cheese and tomato sticks and red and white wines.
Stewart, who is chief executive officer of the Sandals and Beaches Resorts, said this was long overdue to expand the capacity of that side of the island.
Pointing to the many Jamaican enterprises in Montego Bay, he singled out the BPO sector expansion, the hotel sector over the last 10 plus years, and the advent of hotel-supply secondary services such as Rainforest Seafoods, CPJ (Caribbean Producers Jamaica), and many others. Commercial banks have also put down big anchors in the Second City.
As the advent of expansion takes place, many of the executives who power these companies have children and are having a challenge finding seamless placement in secondary schools, states the Rose Hall Academy chairman.