Charities grateful for Digicel support
Published:Friday | October 11, 2019 | 12:15 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Denis O’Brien, the founder of the Digicel Foundation, made a personal appearance in the island to present cheques of $2.5 million each to five beneficiaries of the Digicel 5K Run for Special Needs in downtown Kingston on Saturday. The organisations are the Community Base Rehabilitation Jamaica, Steps Centre, Early Stimulation Plus, Best Care Foundation, and Jamaica Visually Impaired Cricket Association. O’Brien was full of praise for their work with children with physical and mental challenges, carried out with limited resources.
“We appreciated the work you do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis,” he said at the handover on Tuesday.
“This is the eighth staging of the Digicel 5K Run for Special Needs, and I thank our friends and partners who made it such a success over the weekend.
“We had 10,000 runners, of whom there were 1,069 Digicel runners and family members who I thank for their participation. But I am particularly pleased because we have five worthy beneficiaries, organisations that have done incredible work with special needs in Jamaica. All the parents and supporters of these organisations, I also thank you.”
Jason Ricketts of the Jamaica Visually Impaired Cricket Association said the contribution will greatly assist in developing a nursery they have planned as well as help with scouting and getting females trained.
“We thank the Digicel Foundation for considering our project. We will put it to good use. It will be used to develop our nursery as well as talent search islandwide. We now have more resources to let the girls train by themselves as well as get more people to training with the demographics,” he said.
Antonica Gunter-Gayle, principal for the Early Stimulation Plus, said the donation would be used for a therapy room and to acquire equipment. “We are excited,” she said. “This will afford us many things. Working with children with disabilities that have so much potential, they need opportunities, and this $2.5 million will assist us with our therapy room. It will also assist us with procurement of equipment, walkers, wheelchairs, as well as the training of parents. Our staff will receive training to be more efficient and effective in serving our children. So there are a number of areas this $2.5 million will cover to give a better chance to the special needs community, especially our children.”