From Caribbean Times
Good Shepherd Home For Girls to Benefit from Revamped Computer Room
Gordon Street, Villa Area, St. John’s, Antigua: A group of deserving students in Antigua & Barbuda benefitted from the opening of Caribbean Lottery’s first After School Advantage lab in the country.
This state-of-the-art study lab was launched recently at The Good Shepherd Home for Girls in St. John’s.
The After School Advantage Programme sponsored by Caribbean Lottery and GTECH, is the company’s signature corporate philanthropy initiative. The Programme sees non-profit agencies throughout the world receiving well-equipped computer centres for their facilities, with a keen focus on the globalised educational development of young people aged 5-18 in primary and secondary schools.
Through the After School Advantage programme, The Good Shepherd Home for Girls has received five computers for its revamped computer room, in addition to ancillary battery packs, ceiling fans, wireless networking equipment, and surge protectors.
GTECH Antilles Country Manager, Brendan Hames, spoke on behalf of GTECH and Caribbean Lottery™ with satisfaction on his company’s newly formed partnership with the Home:
“Words cannot describe how we feel to be able to bring our After School Advantage programme to Antigua & Barbuda. The children of the Good Shepherd Home for Girls will now have access to the global village filled with information and knowledge to be gained, through the computer hardware and software that Caribbean Lottery has provided.”
He continued: “We not only see this as a partnership with Good Shepherd, but also as a symbol of our commitment to the Antigua community to which we belong, as the Home’s residents now have the ability to make an even greater positive impact on society once they have finished schooling that is competitive on both a national and international level.”
The Administrator of the Home, Ms. Heather Lopez, expressed gratitude for the needed donation, stating, “Our girls have the potential to become anything that they want to be, and with these gifts I am sure that they will continue to work hard and take full advantage of the computer equipment to achieve their individual goals.”
Speaking on behalf of the Saint Vincent DePaul Society of the Roman Catholic Church, the group that runs the Home, Mrs. Jacqui Joseph said:
“Our girls will benefit immensely from this Caribbean Lottery gift. They now have all of the necessary tools needed to take advantage of the digital world in front of them, and won’t be left behind from this global educational development movement.”
GTECH is a leading commercial operator and provider of technology in the regulated worldwide gaming markets. The company works with more than 241 After School Advantage centres globally. Since 2005, GTECH and its subsidiaries have opened and upgraded 28 After School Advantage locations in the English-speaking Caribbean. In Jamaica, there are seven GTECH After School Advantage centres. Trinidad & Tobago received 10 centres from GTECH in 2005-2006, three of these original partner centres have been upgraded and refurbished since then, and seven new centres have been opened. St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Kitts and Barbados currently have After School Advantage centres.
IMAGE: Jacqui Joseph, Chairperson of the Good Shepherd Home’s Board of Directors, participates in a ribbon cutting ceremony with Brendan Hames, GTECH Antilles Country Manager (left), and Most Reverend Bishop Kenneth Richards.
For more on this story go to: http://caribtimes.com/2015/01/08/caribbean-lottery-and-gtech-bring-after-school-advantage-programme-to-antigua/#.VK77F1p-RIc