CHURCH on the Rock, Kingston, in collaboration with the Universal Access Fund Company Limited, last Thursday launched its computer centre dubbed “Rock Internet Café”.

Equipped with 10 computers, the centre is to serve residents of communities such as Cassava Piece, Whitehall, Common and Hundred Lane.

“I just want the people to be computer literate,” said Franz Fletcher, senior pastor of the church, in a release to the media. “Our (Jamaican) people need to be elevated to another level.”

The pastor expressed a similar sentiment concerning another active mission of the church — its literacy programme called PEC (Progressive Education Classes).

The church celebrated 25 years of ministry in Jamaica in late October 2009, with the highlight of the celebrations being the establishment of the Church on the Rock Foundation, which will see the formation of a state-of-the-art remedial school for high school-age students, the opening of a Restorative Justice Centre to rehabilitate at-risk young men, and the start of a breakfast-feeding programme that caters to primary and high school students living close to the church.

The computer centre, Fletcher said, will support these projects and more.

Meanwhile, Hugh Cross, managing director of the Universal Access Fund, which put up the money for the centre, said the company is “extremely pleased to have provided the funding for this very important facility for Cassava Piece and surrounding communities”.

The Universal Access Fund has facilitated the upgrade of every public high school throughout Jamaica through the e-Learning Jamaica Company, and has funded the development of the Information Commons at the National Library, as well as the provision of computers and associated equipment at every parish and branch library throughout the country. The Rock Internet Café is the 16th community Internet access point to be commissioned to service, including facilities at five post offices, by the Universal Access Fund.

Church on the Rock, Kingston — founded in 1984 by Apostle David Keane and his late wife Pastor Denver — conducts several other community-based projects. Chief among them is the recently refurbished Sonshine Medical Clinic, which offers free medical care to patients every Saturday. The church also funds and operates the Andrew Keane Memorial Home for Girls, which is authorised by the Child Development Agency to house vulnerable young women. Each Sunday evening, the church also hosts a social intervention and recreational programme, named STARS (Saving and Transforming At Risk Souls), for some 200 children aged six to 13 years old.