The Rio Claro West Sec­ondary School has re­ceived a ma­jor ed­u­ca­tion­al boost with the do­na­tion of 30 lap­tops val­ued at US$15,000 from the Unit­ed States.

The do­na­tion was pre­sent­ed to Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian and Prin­ci­pal Pre­ston Kissoon of the Rio Claro West Sec­ondary School, dur­ing a small cer­e­mo­ny at the US Em­bassy Mon­day.

Dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny, Chargé d’Af­faires Shante Moore not­ed the do­na­tion was in con­tin­ued sup­port of stu­dents and ed­u­ca­tors neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Moore com­mend­ed the min­istry for its on­go­ing ef­forts to en­sure chil­dren have uni­ver­sal ac­cess to the tools and re­sources nec­es­sary to learn, de­spite the cur­rent chal­lenges of COVID-19. 

“The Unit­ed States faces sim­i­lar chal­lenges,” Moore ob­served while pledg­ing con­tin­ued US sup­port to Trinidad and To­ba­go to over­come vir­tu­al ed­u­ca­tion re­source gaps. 

Mor­ris-Julien thanked the US Em­bassy and Mil­i­tary Li­ai­son Of­fice for the do­na­tion, say­ing, “These lap­tops are not just de­vices, but they are tools that con­tribute to the ed­u­ca­tion and se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”