WINDSOR Castle All-Age School in Portland has been given a leg up in its efforts to recover from the ravages of Hurricane Sandy on October 24.

The Digicel Foundation is to provide the school with half a million dollars to repair the enrichment centre it established at the school two years ago.

The centre, which received $1,700,000 from the foundation to fill its equipment needs at the time, forms part of the ongoing enrichment initiative — a joint venture between the foundation and the Ministry of Education, which aims to increase literacy and numeracy at the primary level, while striving to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of 100 per cent literacy by 2015.

However, Sandy put a damper on things last month. The centre was one of several sections of the school to sustain damage; Sandy tore off the roof, damaging the contents of the room.

On November 7, executive vice-chairman of the foundation Major General Robert Neish and programme manager for the rehabilitation of Redemption Market, Everton King, visited the school to determine how best they could help. They settled on providing the institution with $500,000 to facilitate restoration of the enrichment centre.

"I feel for the loss of the centre because the children were really learning. They loved all the equipment they got to work with and enjoyed using the computers to write their stories," said centre co-ordinator Eleanor Gooden, noting that the donation was timely.

"The foundation is committed to supporting Windsor Castle All-Age and we are doing everything we can to ensure that its immense progress does not falter due to hurricane damage," noted Samantha Chantrelle, executive director of the Digicel Foundation.