Nerissa Persaud eyeing literacy empowerment, community spirit as new Rotary MoBay president
Published:Friday | June 28, 2024 | 12:05 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Nerissa J. Persaud, the newest president of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay, is set on promoting literacy empowerment for schools and uplifting of community spirit in the western city as the mandate for her year-long administration in the 63-year-old service organisation.
Persaud, an entrepreneur and chief executive officer of the learning development firm Corporate Learning Concierge, was installed into the presidency of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay for 2024-2025, along with her chosen administrative body, at the Rose Hall Estates’ White Witch Golf Course in Montego Bay on Saturday evening. She replaces immediate past president Paul G. Thompson.
“What I will be taking as my ‘thunder’ is the empowerment of literacy in the communities within the veins of Montego Bay that need it the most. I have already gotten some schools lined up that I will be working with, to include Buckingham Primary and Infant School and Salt Spring Primary School,” Persaud told The Gleaner in an interview shortly after her installation.
“More than anything, it is really about getting the heart and spirit of Rotarians within the Rotary Club of Montego Bay in the community doing what we can do, and doing it however we can do it. At the end of the day, we are all entrepreneurs, we’re all businesspeople, we have something to give, and we have got to take a little of our time and connect it with our community, with our business leaders and with sponsors, and we must come together and forge a new path,” added Persaud, who has had 20 years’ experience working with hotels and resorts globally.
Other plans that Persaud and her administration intend to make a reality include collaborations with the Montego Bay Type V Clinic, and environmental conservatory work with special focus on education about marine biology and its importance and relevance to Jamaica.
Despite being of Guyanese-Canadian descent and having only lived in Jamaica for roughly two years, Persaud noted that her association with the Rotary Club was what helped her to forge a connection with her new island home.
“I do a lot of work in the philanthropic space, and I’ve been living in Jamaica for two years. I have been a Rotarian for about two years, too, but the work that we do through the Rotary Club of Montego Bay is deeply important to me, and it is important to my identity,” said Persaud. “When I moved to Jamaica, I didn’t have many connections, and I had never set foot in the island before. But through Rotary, we do it together; that is how we’re going to make a difference, not by one person alone.”
Meanwhile, in his outgoing presidential address, Thompson promised that he will continue to offer support to Persaud and her team as a fellow Rotarian, even as he thanked the wider club for giving him the opportunity to serve as president over the 2023-2024 period.
“I am comforted and humbled in the fact that I am just one man, there for a short time, to do the best I can among the greater humanitarian machine that is Rotary International. The accountability and responsibility of all the disappointments, irritations, missed deadlines, unfinished projects, is mine and mine alone to bear, but I am grateful and totally indebted to a team of individuals who were at first just fellow Rotarians, but have now become family over the year that we have served the Rotary Club of Montego Bay together,” said Thompson.
“President-elect Nerissa [Persaud] will replace me at centre-stage, but I will assure her and her incoming board that I will simply be in the background someplace. I have not left the stage and I am not abandoning ship, I will still be here to help choreograph this wonderful performance of service,” Thompson added.