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WESTERN BUREAU: “Where are you, Mr Prime Minister? Where are you? We need help.” It was the anguished cry from Cooper’s Pen, on Saturday morning as residents, some already homeless and others fearful that their houses could be next, returned to the streets demanding intervention and relocation in the wake of a demolition exercise that has shaken the Trelawny community. Dressed in white and armed with placards, the residents gathered along the North Coast Highway from early morning, insisting that they are no longer looking merely for temporary assistance.

For students starting at a new school, the first day holds many questions: Will they see any familiar faces? Who will they sit with at lunch? Who will they play with at recess? “I’m this much nervous,” said Iman Fair-Seldon, five, holding her hands about four inches (10 centimetres) apart. Iman will start first grade next month at a new school in southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Despite the nerves, she said she is excited to make new friends.

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has embraced democratic socialism, the political philosophy championed by former PNP leader and Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s, declaring that changing times are creating renewed interest in the ideology. Golding, addressing the PNP’s Greendale Divisional Conference on Thursday night, said the philosophy was gaining traction even in the United States (US), where, he argued, there was growing recognition of the need for governments to put people’s interests ahead of those of powerful individuals and groups.

WESTERN BUREAU: They started with mathematics. Then students wanted Spanish, English, science, information technology and social studies. Soon, four weekdays were not enough. “Miss, we’re ready,” they told their educators. Saturday was added. Then Sunday.

Civil engineering dreams for Paul Thomas Watson were moulded as a teenage labourer on construction sites, working alongside his father. Now, days away from beginning his degree at the University of Technology (UTech), Watson fondly harkened back to his adolescence, when summer vacations exposed him to the fundamentals of building. His namesake father, a high school science educator who took on part-time contractor jobs to make ends meet, would bring Watson and his elder brother, Paul Lincoln, to work on projects during weekends.

WESTERN BUREAU: La Sonja Harrison, the newly reinstalled president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), wants the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information to say whether the $18 billion allotted for post-Hurricane Melissa repairs to affected schools is sufficient, especially for schools in western Jamaica, which took a battering from the Category 5 hurricane.

WESTERN BUREAU: Attorney-at-law Helene Coley Nicholson, president of Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship Jamaica, is encouraging educators to prioritise interpersonal interaction with students to develop their critical-thinking skills, rather than relying on artificial intelligence (AI), which she says may risk degrading a child’s cognitive development.

WESTERN BUREAU: Nurse practitioner Tackaya Brown-Lawrence, who heads the St James Child and Adolescent Wellness Centre, says mental-health stigma remains a major barrier preventing children and adolescents from getting the care they need, and that health workers cannot simply wait for families to recognise mental-health problems and seek help.

WESTERN BUREAU: Travellers trying to get between Jamaica and Florida in the United States are facing airfares exceeding US$3,000, sold-out flights, and limited alternatives as a severe summer squeeze on airline seats takes hold. The crunch, particularly acute during July and August, has made getting to South Florida – normally less than two hours by air from Jamaica – an expensive and, in some cases, near-impossible exercise.

Kemoy Blake, the technical drawing teacher at Winston Jones High School in Manchester, is used to his students achieving high passes in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination. But in his eight years at the school, this was the first time all his students scored grade ones in the subject area, with some earning distinctions. “I am extremely proud and grateful. For me as a teacher, it is a very ... moment,” he told The Gleaner, failing to find the right word. “I will always cherish this moment.”

Jamaican News