THE Abilities Foundation Skills Training Centre for persons with disabilities on Thursday received a well needed boost to their operations from the United Way of Jamaica with a donation of $800,000.

The funds will go towards assisting in the development of a project to increase the amount of programmes offered by the Abilities Foundation, as well as the types of skills training offered to its students. The project will also involve exposure to the arts, Jamaican culture and community integration, as well as viable options for income generation and independent living.

Commenting on why the United Way of Jamaica had chosen to contribute, to the Abilities Foundation, allocations chairman Carlton Stephen said they had been faced with no other choice.

“The Abilities Foundation sent through a project, which we were compelled to accept because of the nature of the organisation to train and support persons with physical challenges. We know that they are a good organisation to work with,” he told the Sunday Observer. Register with ABIS, RADA urges St Ann farmers

OCHO RIOS, St Ann – The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) in St Ann is appealing to farmers in the parish to register with the Agro Business Information System (ABIS) programme and become active participants in the fight against praedial larceny.

“To date, we have registered a total of 12,617 farmers for the programme, out of which some 12,372 have been verified,” RADA parish manager Pedro Worghs told JIS News, noting that there was still an outstanding number of farmers who were yet to be registered.

The ABIS system, he assured, was not a form of taxation but was designed to assist farmers in the marketing of their crops and to eliminate praedial larceny. He emphasised that people who were not registered with the system would not be able to purchase farm receipt books.

“Without your receipt books, you will be having serious difficulties in trading your farm produce. You will encounter problems when moving from one section of the parish, or one section of the island, to another with farm produce,” he reminded farmers.

At the same time, Worghs said that goods would be confiscated if farmers were stopped by the police and did not have their receipts as proof of purchase.

The programme, he added, is doing well in some areas of the parish, such as Alexandria and Cave Valley, “but in an area such as the Claremont extension area where, to date, we have verified 2,484 farmers, we still believe that a far greater number of farmers are still to be registered”.

Worghs is encouraging farmers in the parish to make contact with their respective extension area office – St Ann’s Bay, Brown’s Town, Claremont, Alexandria and Cave Valley – and to become registered with ABIS.