NORWICH, Portland – The Norwich Primary will be getting a much-needed facelift for the new school year in September, which should make the surroundings more comfortable for the more than 500 students on roll.

The upgrading work is being sponsored by photographer Ken Ramsay, who has been living in the community for 30 years.

“I live here and since nobody is doing anything then I have to do something,” said Ramsay, who recently adopted the school. “I can’t bare to drive pass this school every day and see it in this condition,” Ramsay told the Observer.

The school, built more than 50 years ago, has 16 old-fashioned classrooms which are separated by chalkboards.

Principal Claudia McLean said the school is severely overcrowded, but that they cannot afford to finish the new set of classrooms being built with the assistance of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and the First Holiness Church of the Apolistic Faith (Trinity), located nearby.

She said, too, that the school does not have enough garbage disposal receptacles and that students dread using the pit latrines. The roof of the library also leaks, damaging the books, according to McLean. The piece of tarpaulin that was placed on the roof during rains was destroyed during heavy rains from Hurricane Dennis earlier this month.

“We need the support because the funds coming from the Ministry of Education is very limited,” McLean said. “I think that Mr Ramsay helping us is a very good idea.”

Ramsay said it was estimated to cost nearly $500,000 to refurbish the school, but said he would be getting assistance from the Friends of Port Antonio (group of people from Kingston who are interested in developing Port Antonio), Coronation Bakery, and Kamal’s Supermarket, all in Port Antonio. He has also received assistance from Super Valu Home Centre Limited and Liguanea Drug and Pharmacy in Kingston. However, Ramsay is still appealing for more assistance to complete the project.

He said there were plans to extend the current garbage receptacle which is located on the opposite side of the entrance to the school. Additionally, he said that he would replace the fence around the school compound, repaint some sections of the building and planned to build five vending kiosks,as well as prune the trees on the school grounds.

“The wooden stalls that are in front of the entrance to school have to go,” he said.

When Ramsay accompanied the Observer on a tour of the school grounds last week, garbage was on the court where the students who were attending summer school were playing. There was also a large amount of garbage near the children’s bathrooms. An incinerator was placed there, but rubbish was thrown behind it.

McLean said that while she encouraged students to dispose of waste properly, there was a need to reenforce the practice.

“. Sometimes the students don’t even bother to throw the garbage in the incinerator,” said the principal.

The toilets had an unbearable odour coming from the stalls and it was also badly in need of fresh paint on the inside.

“Some of the children are so afraid to use the toilet that they urinate on the floor,” the principal said. “That is why we allow some of them to use the staff bathroom.”

However, McLean said the education ministry plans to get rid of the pit latrines and replace them with flush toilets, but she was unsure of the date when this would be done. In the meantime, Ramsay said that he planned to replace the seats of the latrines.

“It did not need to get to be this. A little help would have taken the school a long way,” said Ramsay. “My major concern is the presentation of the whole school.”

Students were thankful that their school was receiving some assistance.

Eleven year-old Vincent Howard said “the garbage nasty up the school yard”. He said some of the students stood on the pit latrines to urinate. “The toilet don’t smell good sometimes,” he added.

When 10-year-old Latoya Franklyn was asked what she disliked about her school the most she said: “The bathrooms, because sometimes them smell and the children dodo (defecate) on the ground.” She also said that she was concerned about the poor garbage disposal. But she said she felt happy that her school is getting some help.

It is not the first time Ramsay has assisted Norwich.

In 1985 he, along with 12 men, worked from midnight to 6:00 am every day during the year to clean the streets of Port Antonio.

Ramsay is the youngest of three brothers. His work is known in Europe and the United States. He is the author of Dare to Dream – a Retrospect of Black and White Photographs, as well as The Dream lives on – a range of black and white photographs of former Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley.

Ramsay also freelances for the Observer.

-davidsont@jamaicaobserver.com