KINGSTON, Jamaica— The Sagicor Foundation has contributed J$3.5 million to 13-year-old Imani-Leigh Hall’s initiative to help high school students across Jamaica recover from learning loss attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The intensive three-week literacy and numeracy summer programme will be offered to grades seven, eight, and nine students, in partnership with ILAH’s Lemon-Aid Stand for Kids Foundation.

In a release on Wednesday, it was disclosed that the project will commence on Monday, July 4 at three locations—St James, Manchester and Kingston.

Hall, the founder of ILAH’s Lemon-Aid, intends to use the venture she dubbed ‘Dip and Come again’ to provide one-on-one tutoring to students who fell behind in their academics over the last two years.

“I am so happy and grateful that Sagicor is assisting in such a huge way with this initiative and making it possible for ILAH’s Lemon-Aid Stand for Kids Foundation to help so many children who fell behind in Math and English because of the pandemic,” she said. “This is my biggest initiative to date, and it really means a lot to me to be able to bring this to life.”

The executive director of the Sagicor Foundation, Alysia White, expressed delight at the partnership with Hall, who was one of the company’s 50 Community Heroes in 2021.

She said: “It was really a match made in heaven. Last year, through Sigma Run, we set aside funds for our Get Back on Track initiative, which is designed to help students across the island ‘catch up’ from COVID-19. We had the funds set aside and ILAH’s had the will. They have developed an amazing curriculum, and so we’re very pleased to contribute 3.5 million dollars.”

The approximately 100 participants for the programme will be selected based on referrals from school principals and guidance counsellors.

They will be guided from Monday to Thursday by teachers and Sagicor Foundation volunteers and on Fridays, students will benefit from sessions aimed at their personal development with experts in various fields.