Stu­dents of the Nel­son Street Girls RC School could hard­ly con­tain their joy and ex­cite­ment up­on ar­riv­ing at the school this morn­ing and see­ing a com­plete­ly trans­formed, up­grad­ed and beau­ti­fied com­pound and class­rooms.

Ma­jor re­fur­bish­ment works were con­duct­ed at the school over the week­end by mem­bers of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT), who lent their sup­port to the Project Care School Re­fur­bish­ment Project.

Among the works con­duct­ed were the in­stal­la­tion of a new play­ground, paint­ing of desks, chairs, bench­es and the walls, as well as the re­fur­bish­ment of the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice and oth­er rooms in the school.

The ini­tia­tive un­der­tak­en by the SORT is a new one, which at­tempts to fos­ter pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

A state­ment by the Po­lice Ser­vice said that the aim of SORT is not on­ly to pre­vent, de­ter and dis­rupt the fast pace of evolv­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties but al­so to cre­ate safe spaces for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors.

Un­der Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s Street Talk ini­tia­tive, all 77 po­lice sta­tions across the coun­try will be adopt­ing schools and com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres in their dis­tricts, to as­sist with their beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and up­keep.

The Po­lice Ser­vice said this will en­gen­der clos­er com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and de­vel­op part­ner­ships with all cit­i­zens.