New PATH campaign aims to uplift morale of children

New PATH communications campaign aims to uplift morale of children

Mr Dunstan Bryan PATH

Kingston, May 29, 2013

Project Director of the Programme for the Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) Dunstan Bryan said that a communications campaign to help to stop the higher than acceptable drop-out rate of boys after Grade Nine is about to be launched.

Speaking to the Public Relations Society of Jamaica on May 28, Mr Bryan he said that the boys interviewed reported that the treatment that they received as PATH beneficiaries made them feel that school was not for them. He also noted that guidelines are now in place to assist school administrators to adopt best practices when they delivered PATH services. Among these services are meals in schools.

Noting that the goal of PATH as about breaking inter-generational poverty, Mr Bryan said, “What we get is a perverse message where the child is no longer sees PATH as a vehicle to attainment; but the child sees PATH as labelling him as poor, and because of poverty you don't deserve to be treated like everybody."

The “A School We Seh” campaign that will be launched features entertainers Tony Rebel, Romain Virgo and Miss Kitty reassuring the children that the way ahead was to stay in school, and use education to build a future out of poverty.

Mr Bryan also reinforced that PATH beneficiaries were expected to use the programme as a vehicle to attain their own financial independence.

Noting that PATH is a benefit to the society, Mr Bryan said, “People we are investing in now can make a positive investment in the economic environment in the future. If I did not make that investment now, the opportunity cost of the investment in that individual would be excessive.”

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