St. Luke’s Methodist Receives Donation from Smart
Five computers were donated to Saint Luke’s Methodist Primary School in Belize City to boost its computer lab. The now thirteen functioning stations will assist teachers and students with their research and will help to incorporate technology into lessons. The donation was made by Smart Belize; the telecommunication company has been working with the institution for over a year now and like other schools, has extended broadband services to the institution. News Five’s Duane Moody attended the brief handing over ceremony and has this report.
Duane Moody, Reporting
There are approximately seven hundred and thirty students enrolled at Saint Luke’s Methodist Primary School on Mahogany Street in Belize City. For some time now, the school has had a computer lab with about eight functioning devices for research purposes by the students and teachers. But there is increasing demand and today, the school was the beneficiary of five computers courtesy of Smart.
Pamela Bodden
Pamela Bodden, Principal, St. Luke’s Methodist Primary School
“Technology is one of the areas that is lacking in a lot of schools and the main reason, because we are not able to provide that kind of services; we don’t have the necessary equipment and in the quantities that we would like to have. We have a laboratory, but I guess partly only for the name. We don’t have the amount of computers that we needed.”
Adelaide Sabido, PR & Branding Officer, Smart Belize
“There is a need for computers and technology equipment in not just Saint Luke; in most primary schools in Belize and we are trying to implement a strategy where we look at these schools and try to assist as best as possible. And today we are here to hand over five computers that will be used in the computer lab accompanied by Smart broadband service as well as the continued partnership we have with the school.”
Adelaide Sabido, Public Relations and Branding Officer of Smart Belize says that the company adopted the school a little over a year ago and this is simply a continuation of the support to Saint Luke’s in various initiatives, including sports and technology.
Adelaide Sabido
Adelaide Sabido
“We have always had education at the fore point of our initiatives at Smart and in the past year, we have assisted the school with their sport initiatives with the basketball court. We have also agreed to sign on to a contractual agreement where we will be providing broadband services to the school. Currently it serves the computer labs and a portion of the school campus. As you know teachers have been trying more and more to implement and to include technology in getting their curriculum across. And in so doing, providing the broadband service, it will allow for teachers to take technology into the classroom, show YouTube videos and make the classes a little bit more interesting and relatable to children of this generation. The value of the donation with the computers alone is roughly about seven to eight thousand dollars and we are exploring to fully equip the lab as months pass by and so you can expect to hear more from us in terms of sponsorship to information technology at Saint Luke.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
