Shadane Williamson is bowled during a game of 'bush cricket' at Pell River Primary in this November 2008 photograph. Behind her is wicketkeeper Jamoy Davis. - File Photos

GOODWILL HAS been started to trickle into Pell River Primary, the school of Andrae Lyons, Jamaica's representative to the second renewal of Microsoft's Latin America Innovative Educators Forum in Argentina.

Lyons had designed a reading software to help slow learners at Pell River, which is situated just outside Cauldwell in west Hanover.

Lyons, a 23-year-old grade-six teacher, developed Learning to Read from Basics, a programme intended to correct reading deficiencies in children. The software helps children identify letter sounds, a crucial step in making or identifying words, as well as reading.

Two months ago when Lyons journeyed to Argentina to display his creation at the forum, he told The Gleaner the school was hardly able to pay its monthly bill for Internet service.

Lyons also said learning at the institution would be greatly enhanced if the school had a multimedia projector.

Help has finally come.

Last week, a group of overseas-based Jamaicans who had read the Gleaner story answered the call for the multimedia projector.

"About 13 of us got together and decided to buy the projector that the school needed," Shernette Linton Stafford, one of the donors, told The Gleaner in an email.

Free Internet service

But it is not just Jamaicans abroad who have stimulated the pulse of Pell River. Telecommunications firm LIME indicated to the school in October that it would receive free Internet service.

In September, Lyons said the more than 200 students enrolled at Pell River were being asked to contribute $5 per week out of their lunch money to help pay for Internet access. The remainder was being contributed by staff monthly.

Yesterday, Elaine Samuels-Brown, principal of Pell River Primary, told The Gleaner that LIME has stopped charging the school.

Lyons

"After the story was published in The Gleaner, LIME contacted us and said they were going to give us the service free of charge and they have delivered on that promise," Samuels-Brown said.

The principal said Internet charges were taking a toll on the school's budget.

"We are so grateful to our donors. Since Mr Lyon's exploits, a number of persons have approached us and have expressed an interest to assist the school. We are blessed to have him as a teacher at this time," Samuels-Brown said.

Meanwhile, the school is not completely out of the woods, even with the receipt of the multimedia projector. The principal said the room earmarked for multimedia sessions can scarcely accommodate 20 students. Despite not having a computer lab, the headmistress said school officials would improvise.

"We intent to use the multimedia projector for the purposes for which it was donated. Although we are challenged for space, we will be doing small groups at a time in an effort to get our children reading well," Samuels-Brown said.

Lyons told The Gleaner he was now designing a learning software programme to help grade-four students perform at or above their grade level.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com