Westrac Pays One-year Tuition for Two Belize City Primary Schools
Parents of some three hundred and sixty students can breathe a sigh of relief tonight. That’s because, Westrac Limited is providing tuition for one academic year for students of two primary schools in Belize City. The schools are the Unity Presbyterian and the Queen Street Baptist. Families are hurting from the loss of jobs and the economic downturn so the donation is timely as the students get ready to go back to classes in August. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
Amid the financial woes that many are experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, one Belizean company has been living up to its corporate social responsibility. Today, Westrac Limited visited two primary schools in Belize City where they presented a pair of checks to cover tuition costs for their entire student bodies. This afternoon, Unity Presbyterian School received a generous financial donation, as well as school bags for the students.
Dalila Makhwani
Dalila Makhwani, Principal, Unity Presbyterian School
“We were blessed. Westrac has donated two hundred and fifty-five backpacks for our students and they are paying tuition for two hundred and five students here at Unity Presbyterian School. We are going to be giving the parents receipts for the tuition that they would not have to be paying for this year and what I can say is that this donation has not only impacted our students but it has also impacted the teachers, the administration and the community as a whole.”
Isani Cayetano
“What was the reaction from you when you received word that Westrac would be making this generous contribution when most parents are having it very difficult?”
Dalila Makhwani
“Well, I was in the office thinking about how we‘re going to reopen school this year with all the policies that we have to implement, all the changes that we have to implement this year due to COVID-19 and I was really stressed out about it. And then all of a sudden I get a call stating that Westrac is going to be paying the fees for our two hundred and fifty-five students. To be honest, I jumped, I literally jumped and I was so excited when I heard the news. This something that will help us to achieve our goals faster and easier.”
At Unity Presbyterian, all two hundred and fifty students are being covered for the entire upcoming academic year. According to Julian Thiessen, it is an initiative the company has embarked upon for a number of years where it reaches out in support of worthy social causes.
Julian Thiessen
Julian Thiessen, Sales Manager, Westrac Ltd.
“Westrac has always had an initiative each year to support certain things like the youths and the athletes and education has been a big focus recently. And for that reason we asked an organization that‘s based here which is BCE, Belize Camping Experience, to look into what were the needs, especially relating to the pandemic now. The slowdown of the economy might be even here with regards to tourism sector and so we asked them to see where was the need and who were some, there are many deserving schools, but who we could impact and they brought a list of names and we saw the large amount of students here and Belize City, as a region, can feel the impact. I know some of the parents and that might go down to the kids and we don‘t want this, hopefully this temporary setback in the economy to have a long-term effect on the kids and their education. So we were really happy to choose this school among other schools to give the registration and the bag so they could feel the support and so the parents could assist them financially.”
This morning, the team from Westrac visited Queen Street Baptist School where a check of for eleven thousand, nine hundred dollars was present to the principal. Altogether, the company donated almost thirty-five thousand dollars in financial assistance to both schools. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
