Basseterre, St. Kitts, September 6, 2020 (ZIZ News):On Saturday, several government officials distributed school supplies to children across the country at various events.
ZIZ’s cameras caught up with Education Minister, the Hon Jonel Powell as he gave away 200 school bags filled with supplies to children of Constituency #2 at the Garden’s Playfield.
He said this event was particularly significant as parents are facing extra challenges caused by the covid-19 pandemic.
“Generally there’s normally been such a big outpouring of support for the communities that I didn’t want to saturate the market but particularly this year with the difficulties we’ve seen coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic I realized that resources are not like they used to be and so the community needed more support. And so I decided that I, this year, would start my very first back to school drive,” he said. “It really is a gratifying feeling for me to be able to come and fill that gap for those who are really just not in a position to get these things for their kids”
Meanwhile, at the Dr. William Connor Primary School, Minister of Health and Parliamentary representative for the area, the Hon. Akilah Byron Nisbett was hosting her fourth school supplies distribution.
She said this year they had to scale back some of the activities due to Covid-19 protocols but she was nonetheless pleased with the turnout.
“I was overwhelmed with the number of children that turned up this year,” she said. “We usually cater for around 400 children but it seems that we had way more than 400 children turning up this time around so next year we will have to plan accordingly and hopefully next year it will be a little bit more as we are accustomed to with the hair braiders and the barbers as well”
Other officials hosting Back to School supplies distribution were Hon. Shawn Richards at the Charles E. Mills Secondary School, and Ambassador Kevin Williams at four locations in Constituency #6.