WESTERN BUREAU — JAMAL, St James will next Friday stage a walkathon in Montego Bay to raise funds to facilitate infrastructure improvement work at its Barracks Road adult education centre (AEC) in the resort city.

The walkathon comes following last year’s hiatus.

“We are badly in need of fixtures like doors and we want to do some painting. And if we get enough (money) we are hoping we’ll be able to get additional desks and chairs for the students,” said Delores Samuels, area manager for JAMAL (Jamaica Movement for the Advancement in Literacy).

The financial target of the walkathon, she said, is $100,000 — some $80,000 more than they made from the last walkathon in 2001.

Over 100 students and staff members of JAMAL, St James, in addition to three Canadian students from the George Brown University and other interested persons are expected to join next Friday’s walk.

But anyone interested in joining the move to raise money is welcome to participate, Samuels said.

The walkathon will begin at JAMAL’s Humber Avenue offices. From there the group will walk along Barnett Street and out to Westgate. From there, they will walk to Freeport and then on to Gloucester Avenue.

The walkathon will culminate inside Sam Sharpe Square.

Meanwhile, since its inception in 1972 by then Prime Minister, Michael Manley, JAMAL has changed its tactic in order to increase the level of literacy in the island.

In the early days, Samuels said, JAMAL officers – known as community liaison officers — would visit schools to ascertain whether students were attending. The homes of absentee students were then visited to ensure the students were sent back to school. But, Samuels said, there was nothing in place to ensure the children returned to school or to punish the parents who deliberately kept their children from attending.

Nowadays JAMAL officers are known as field officers and they set up night classes in the communities they visit and organize fundraisers and motivational talks.

The offerings of the JAMAL programme in St James, for example, have increased. They include:

* two AEC’s that benefit some 420 students, aged 15 to 60 years;

* night classes at several churches and community centres across the parish; and

* a life-skills programme that exposes students to training in values and attitudes, including self esteem and conflict resolution.

There is also a work place programme, Samuels said, that sees JAMAL teachers going into the workplace to educate workers. Only earlier this month, the area manager said, some 60 students from the Montego Bay Free Zone graduated from the programme.