KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) handed over 95 Samsung tablets to three schools yesterday during a ceremony at their Kingston office.

The schools which benefited from this donation are Guy’s Hill High School, Ensom City Primary School and Eltham Park Primary School. The commission said Guy’s Hill High School was presented with 25 tablets for having the most participants online at the seventh annual Junior Athletes Anti-Doping Education Workshop for region one.

Region one includes secondary schools from Kingston and St Andrew, St Thomas and St Catherine. The workshops were held virtually for four regions across the island during the month of November.

The commission said Ensom City Primary and Eltham Park Primary Schools were presented with 35 Samsung devices each as part of its outreach activities.

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange, who was present at yesterday’s ceremony, said, “The donation of Samsung tablets is part of a broader initiative that JADCO is now executing in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information as part of the public education and awareness thrust of the Commission; and so JADCO will be introducing antidoping as part of the primary school curriculum. Today it starts with two primary schools, Eltham Park Primary and Ensom City Primary.”

Also speaking at the event, Chairman of JADCO, Alexander Williams said, “The commission preloaded anti-doping information to the devices because we believe that if athletes are armed with the requisite information pertaining to anti-doping from the primary and secondary school levels they will be well equipped to make informed decisions when they become senior and professional athletes.”

Student athlete at Guy’s Hill High, Shayanique Neil, expressed her gratitude.

“This event was inspiring, to see JADCO giving and helping others in this pandemic, which is a challenging time for students all over Jamaica, especially the ones who are in need of the devices to access online school. I would like to show gratitude and appreciation from my school to JADCO; we are grateful.”

The commission said in the coming weeks, 75 more tablets will be presented to schools from the remaining regions.