KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — The National Education Trust (NET), set up under the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, will coordinate the efforts of the Jamaica Diaspora Education Task Force (JDETF) to raise US$2 million.

The JDETF has partnered with organizations in Jamaica and the diaspora to raise the money to upgrade the infrastructure of early-childhood and primary schools in Jamaica.

This initiative will take the form of a competition in which Jamaicans living here and the more than three million living in the diaspora are invited to make monetary contributions to a school of their choice.

Addressing a JIS ‘Think Tank’ recently, Manager for Public-Private Partnership at the NET, Latoya Harris, said the fundraising campaign is an inter-parish competition among Jamaicans across the globe who will compete to raise funds for schools in their respective parish.;

The drive was launched on November 1, 2016 and will last until January 31, 2017, with the declaration of each parish winner of the competition.

At the end of the campaign, the donations will be tallied and the parish that raises the most money will be declared the winner. The ‘winning’ parish will receive funds to support the infrastructure development for a second school from funds collected.

According to Harris, the Pledge2Build campaign was developed to raise money for capital improvement of early-childhood and primary schools across the island, but will also support other educational initiatives, such as the international teachereducation practitioner exchange programme, and the parental and community awareness programme.

She explained that the long-term objective of Pledge2Build is to develop a comprehensive five-year resource-raising plan to galvanize the Jamaican diaspora towards education development in Jamaica and create a major consortium of public- and private-sector entities as partners.

In addition, Harris said there will the continued engagement of the Jamaican diaspora through effective communication, utilizing existing channels, including the government’s policy on engagement of the diaspora.

The Pledge2Build Campaign involves collaboration with I Support Jamaica, which is a crowd-funding platform that seeks to provide a simple, creative and secure avenue for Jamaicans residing locally and overseas, as well as friends of the island, to provide financial support to microenterprises and not-for-profit projects and programmes.

Elements for collection of funds for Pledge2Build are the Crowd Funding portal managed by JN I-Support; Western Union or direct deposits to a Jamaica National Account.

Other partners of the initiative are Jamaica National (JN), JN I-Support and JN Foundation; Victoria Mutual Building Society; Union of Jamaica Alumni Association; GraceKennedy Foundation; and Western Union.

For further information on the campaign, persons can visit the website: pledge2build.com, or email info@ pledge2build.com.