The In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) has do­nat­ed 70 elec­tron­ic tablets to se­lect­ed schools and com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences in its con­tin­u­ing ef­fort to nar­row the dig­i­tal di­vide for stu­dents and at-risk chil­dren.

Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from IOM, Case Man­ag­er Tines­tia Haynes, who was on hand to present the tablets at both dis­tri­b­u­tions said, “IOM con­tin­ues to rec­og­nize the need to as­sist mi­grant chil­dren who are cur­rent­ly in the State’s care.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the IOS:

This week the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) Port of Spain Of­fice dis­trib­uted 70 elec­tron­ic tablets to se­lect­ed schools and com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences in its con­tin­u­ing ef­fort to nar­row the dig­i­tal di­vide for stu­dents and at-risk chil­dren.

On Tues­day a dis­tri­b­u­tion was held at Fifth Com­pa­ny Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School, Moru­ga Road, Princes Town and the re­cip­i­ents were Fifth Com­pa­ny Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School, Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary School, St Mary’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, and St Michael’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School. Then on Thurs­day a sec­ond dis­tri­b­u­tion was held at UN House, Chancery Lane, Port of Spain, and the re­cip­i­ents were the Cre­do Foun­da­tion for Jus­tice (Cre­do Sophia House), Mary Care Cen­tre, St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home, and St Jude’s School for Girls.

IOM Case Man­ag­er Tines­tia Haynes, who was on hand to present the tablets at both dis­tri­b­u­tions said, “IOM con­tin­ues to rec­og­nize the need to as­sist mi­grant chil­dren who are cur­rent­ly in the State’s care. In so do­ing, IOM POS has do­nat­ed elec­tron­ic de­vices to five com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences which pro­vide ac­com­mo­da­tion and sup­port to mi­grant chil­dren.”

“The pro­vi­sion of these de­vices would fa­cil­i­tate the bridg­ing of the dig­i­tal di­vide be­tween chil­dren and e-learn­ing, as well as com­mu­ni­ca­tion and en­gage­ment with fam­i­ly mem­bers, in an ef­fort to main­tain their bond. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that this in­ter­ac­tion with fam­i­ly mem­bers would al­so pro­mote fam­i­ly re­uni­fi­ca­tion and al­low for an eas­i­er tran­si­tion to their fam­i­ly homes.”

Dur­ing the De­cem­ber dis­tri­b­u­tion IOM Port of Spain Head of Of­fice Jew­el Ali re­called in March 2021 there was a round of con­sul­ta­tions with Gov­ern­ment, NGOs, and oth­er lo­cal part­ners on what they saw as pri­or­i­ties for the next three years. She not­ed on the area of ed­u­ca­tion the is­sue was raised that there re­mains a dig­i­tal di­vide and stu­dents are still not ac­cess­ing vir­tu­al learn­ing plat­forms.

She added the ini­tia­tive re­sponds to the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal (SDG) 4 which speaks of equal­i­ty in ed­u­ca­tion and re­sponds to the Glob­al Com­pact on Mi­gra­tion (GCM) Ob­jec­tive 15 which seeks to pro­vide in­clu­sive and eq­ui­table qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion to mi­grant chil­dren and youth.

At Tues­day’s dis­tri­b­u­tion Fifth Com­pa­ny Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School Act­ing Prin­ci­pal Don­na Bob­combe-Al­leyne said, “At (our) school and es­pe­cial­ly in the area of Fifth Com­pa­ny…par­ents are very chal­lenged where mon­ey is con­cerned. IOM has de­cid­ed to give us this great favour of the tablets and on be­half of the par­ents I re­al­ly want to say a hearty thank you be­cause this has been a re­al­ly good ini­tia­tive. The chil­dren will ben­e­fit so much from this.”

St Michael’s An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry Monique Sci­pio-Daniel said, “The COVID19 pan­dem­ic has placed us all in a po­si­tion where we are now vir­tu­al. And we have sev­er­al chil­dren at the school who are not as for­tu­nate to be able to get on­line be­cause of the lack of a de­vice, or they may have to be shar­ing de­vices with sib­lings and so on in the home. Hav­ing this do­na­tion from IOM is re­al­ly a bless­ing to all the fam­i­lies at the school. These chil­dren will be able to now get on­line dai­ly once they have the in­ter­net con­nec­tion as well. And it is go­ing to make a huge dif­fer­ence in their lives.”

At Thurs­day’s dis­tri­b­u­tion St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home Man­ag­er Sis­ter Ar­lene Greenidge said, “Our chil­dren are in­volved in var­i­ous de­vel­op­men­tal pro­grammes and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly they are in dif­fer­ent schools both with­in the main­stream and via tu­tors. So, our aim is to en­sure each child has his or her own de­vice. This will bring us clos­er to re­al­is­ing that goal. And the tablets will pro­mote con­sis­ten­cy and time­li­ness in the pro­vi­sion of these ser­vices.”

Mary Care Cen­tre Chair­per­son Sis­ter Deb­o­rah De Rosia said at the cen­tre they cur­rent­ly have ap­prox­i­mate­ly 31 chil­dren.

“And that is al­ways a chal­lenge for them to have de­vices to meet with their coun­sel­lors, their so­cial work­ers, and be­sides their ed­u­ca­tion. Some­times teach­ers must make the sac­ri­fice to come on lat­er in the day be­cause they need to work with the stu­dents as they don’t all have de­vices, or they are shar­ing. So (this do­na­tion) is go­ing to ease the teach­ers who are go­ing to work with them as a group, and it would al­so give the chil­dren an op­por­tu­ni­ty on a one-on-one ba­sis to re­late to their teach­ers, their coun­sel­lors, their so­cial work­ers. And I am sure they will use it for a lit­tle bit of re­lax­ation and recre­ation to re­lieve the stress of the mo­ment. So, with guid­ance we are sure this is al­so go­ing to help them men­tal­ly and so­cial­ly be­sides the aca­d­e­m­ic de­vel­op­ment they are go­ing to be ex­posed to.”

The cer­e­monies this week were a con­tin­u­a­tion of tablet dis­tri­b­u­tions which be­gan two months ago. In De­cem­ber 2021, 123 tablets were dis­trib­uted to the Of­fice of Law En­force­ment Po­lice (OLEP), the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice Arch­dioce­san Min­istry for Mi­grants and Refugees, and NGO the TTV Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work.

IOM ex­pects that the de­vices would ben­e­fit the stu­dents by fa­cil­i­tat­ing and en­hanc­ing vir­tu­al ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. The ini­tia­tive was fund­ed by the US De­part­ment of State Bu­reau of Pop­u­la­tion, Refugees, and Mi­gra­tion (PRM).