Earlier this year, the Lifeline Foundation held a fund raising event to secure funds to help organizations that assist children in particularly difficult circumstances. Last week the charitable institution handed over a $12,000 check to Liberty Foundation and today another $12,000 was handed out, this time to Queen Square Anglican School. Lifeline's Kim Simplis explains that the money will be used for the school's feeding program.
Kim Simpliss, Lifeline Foundation
"Today we are officially presenting the school with its twelve thousand dollar check, a little over twelve thousand dollars, for their feeding program to start."
Alfonso Noble,
Why did you choose this school?
Kim Simpliss,
"The school was chosen, actually it was a group of us. The directors viewed the school and the directors realized that Queen's Square Anglican School is one of the largest schools in Belize City and they were really in need of a breakfast program. The stories that were told of children fainting and children not being able to concentrate in class-numerous stories that really touched our hearts and so we decided to choose this particular school.
We will be doing many more fundraising events to help other schools and orphanages. Lifeline's primary focus is on children, helping children that are in school, children that are in orphanage and our needy children that have been neglected or children that have been abused and abandoned. That's our primary focus."
Those $12,000 were not the only donation that Queen's Square Anglican received today. Over the past two years, the Lion's Club International in collaboration with the Organization of American States has been piloting a program called Lion's Quest. The program targeted 10 schools where teachers were instructed on how to instill life skills to primary school aged children. Now the program is moving from pilot phase to full implementation. With the assistance of the Ministry of Education there is now a mandate to implement the program in all schools countrywide. Today the Lion's Quest continued in trying to achieve that goal and handed over the relevant textbooks to Queen's Square Anglican.
Robert Lopez, Lion's Quest
"Queen's Square today is receiving the books for all their classes because last year they were in the pilot program in standard four only. The program is 'skills for growing' which goes from infant one to standard three. 'Skills for adolescents' which goes from four to six and then 'skills for action' which is the high school component. This school is now implementing the 'skills for growing' and the 'skills for adolescents' in all their schools and so today we came to present the books for all students.
This is the 'changes and challenges.' It is a student book for standard four to six and this book should last them three years because it is a three year program so they will take it in four five and six. We've structured the program for five and six so that there is a two year program for standard five and a one year program for six. So we picked out the more essential and important things so that at least the standard six students will get a good grasp of the program and be able to have a better understanding and of course develop the skills that they need."
The donation is valued at $8,000. Robert Lopez says there is also a high school component to the program which has already been adopted by some schools.
