KINGSTON, Jamaica — Supreme Ventures Limited (SVL) has announced a partnership with the Betty-Ann Blaine led ‘Hear the Children’s Cry’ for the establishment of its Missing Children’s Family & Community Social Work Programme.

SVL has committed some $4.2 million to the initiative over the next two years, to cover salary and remuneration for staff, as well as operational expenditure such as transportation, telephone and support materials for parenting workshops.

The Missing Children’s Family & Community Social Work Programme will fill the gap of community and home visits to interview, counsel and support family members and children who return home after going missing.

It will also serve to assess the family situation and possible underlying causes of the missing children crisis.

Further, it will work to ensure that missing children who return to school are adequately and successfully reintegrated and rehabilitated. There will also be ongoing work with parents, teachers, guidance counsellors and law enforcement agencies in helping to stem the problem of missing children in Jamaica.

SVL will disburse some $2.8 million to Hear the Children’s Cry in year one.

The cheque handover was fittingly made at the Swallowfield Primary School on Whitehall Avenue in Kingston last Tuesday. The school is the alma mater of Ananda Dean, who was abducted and murdered in 2008, and in whose name the Ananda Alert was established.

Balford Henry