FOR almost six decades, the remote rural community of Quick Step in the hills of St Elizabeth, at its border with Trelawny, had seen no infrastructural improvements to Quick Step Basic School.

The small structure, with very limited facilities for the children, was recently demolished however, by Pencils 4 Kids, a New York-based charity organisation. The school is currently being rebuilt bigger and with important amenities such as male and female bathrooms, a sick bay and a kitchen. It is being expanded from 30 x 20 feet to 55 x 37 feet.

Founder of Pencils 4 Kids, Randy Griffiths, is confident that this $7-million project, which was conceived five years ago, will be completed by September 2022. It is being built by a small team of builders who attended the institution or who want their children to achieve a solid early childhood education there. It is anticipated that it will increase the number of students who can be accomodated at the school.

“Our volunteer builders and their children go to that school thought it deserved to be demolished and rebuilt because they were tired of seeing it like that. The building that was here was way smaller and the interior was a wreck. I used to go to the school [but] what was here was not a good standard. Kids cannot learn in that.

“We have to have a school where when the kids start they can start properly to go on to primary school. We have to start it from the ground up, and hopefully we can get some more kids going on to Munro College or any other high schoool of their choice [after primary school because of good start at Quick Step],” Griffiths said.

While Griffiths is pushing his team to have the building ready for the 2022 September term, he appealed to Internet providers not to ignore the community which has under 300 residents.

The Pencils 4 Kids boss added that one of the biggest issues in the community is access to the Internet. He said he recently bought 60 tablets he wanted to donate to students but returned them to the store because there is no Internet access in the community.

“We want Internet bad, even more than we want food right now, because we grow we own food.”

Griffiths, meanwhile, suggested that Jamaicans work together to achieve their mutual goals and stop depending on politicians for help.

“If a food you plant, plant you food. If a road, you sweep, sweep you road but we have to come together as a team and stop depending on Government and other people to help you. We need to govern ourselves, as individuals, groups and communities.”