‘Carnival Escape’ organisers donate $300 to each UISS student

The organisers of “Carnival Escape” have donated over $40,000 from their profits to students of Union Island Secondary School (UISS).

On Thursday, the group, MRI6, had a symbolic presentation at the school’s temporary campus in Arnos Vale, one day before the parents of each student were expected to receive EC$300 in their bank accounts.

The grant will also be given to students of the school who are taking classes at their permanent campus in Union Island, one of the southern Grenadines islands that the category 4 hurricane impacted on July 1, damaging or destroying over 90% of the buildings.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony, Andrew Iton, a member of MRI6, noted that Carnival Escape has been taking place annually since 2009, except for the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He noted that it began primarily to support the hospital’s acquisition of an MRI6 machine.

“And so, initially, the intention was to provide maintenance support for that machine,” he said.

However, the programme developed into a far more community outreach use of the net proceeds of the event.

“And we stuck in the health sector for the first five or six years of the event, and then we moved to a focus more on the youth of the community,” Iton said. 

He said that in the last three year, MRI6 focused primarily on schools and in the two previous years, the focus was on the school breakfast programmes.

“We increased the coverage from five schools in 2022 to 10 schools in 2023,” Iton said.

“2024 we were extremely fortunate. We had the event on the day prior to the arrival of Beryl. We were extremely fortunate to actually have it done. Consequently, as we looked around, we saw that the need coming out of the displacement of the kids from Union Island warranted as much support as we could.”

Iton said MRI6 decided to use the profit from the event primarily to help UISS students get themselves back into a school and learning mode.

“So, this is our attempt to lend some support,” he said.

Maths, English classes

Iton, however, said that the group has noted the national and regional problem of student’s poor performance in maths.

“In the case of many of our schools, they were significantly below even that 34%, which is the regional average.”

He said MRI6 is in discussion with the Ministry of Education on a pilot programme to assist with some after school lessons for the CXC class.

“It should really start at a lower level but where we are now in this thing and because we think it is important just to see if this programme works, we are prepared to go at it and we hopefully will have it going on a broader scale than the initial pilot,” he said.

Iton said the programme will be piloted with the UISS CXC class that is in St. Vincent.

“… we, hopefully, will have that programme going next week where we will provide support through teachers who will provide them with weekly after school lessons and math and English, and hopefully it will help to bolster the results.”

Iton said MRI6 hopes to expand the programme to other schools next term.

Meanwhile, Principal of UISS, Darrel Williams spoke of the impact of MRI6’s school breakfast programme, adding that the school was able to get the group to sponsor more than the 10 students it had initially committed to.

He said he was “a bit elated and emotional” when Keith Boyea, another member of MRI6, contacted him about making the donation to the students.

“… because I know what my students who are here experienced. I experienced it too, being there on site. And I do hope that this grant will help them to replace what they have lost, and we are truly grateful that you guys thought about us,” Williams said. 

“And I’m sure that all students from both campuses will smile a little bit better knowing the hardships that even their parents have gone through because of this disaster and I do applaud the efforts that you continue to do in helping the children of the nation.”

The principal said that the school is looking forward to the afternoon classes in maths and English.

“And I know that the extra support will go a long way, and future support will go a long way from you guys. I just want to encourage you to continue doing what you do best for the enhancement of education in our nation and the development of our children, because they are the future,” Williams said.

Meanwhile, student Deondrew John expressed thanks on behalf of the students.