St Catherine-based social enterprise upskills high school students

More than 60 students from high schools across the Kingston Metropolitan area, Portmore, and Spanish Town participated in the Peruse Unboxes workshop on website development at the Portmore HEART Academy.

This workshop was hosted by Original Peruse Limited in partnership with Niritech Digital Services Limited, Digicel Foundation, Progressive Grocers of Jamaica, and Rainforest Seafoods.

This event was the first in the Peruse Unboxes workshop series aimed at fostering STEM skills among adolescent boys and girls, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, including students from the deaf community and low-income families.

The workshop, held just three days after Girls in ICT Day, introduced the students to the basics of business and website development using WordPress, an Open-source software used to create websites and mobile applications (apps). Facilitated by Ricardo Thompson, Co-Founder of Niritech Digital Services Limited, the students were assigned to groups which presented their website solutions at the end of the workshop.

It is part of Peruse's ongoing commitment to providing affordable educational resources, enabling students to discover a range of STEM skills by addressing real-life challenges. This initiative aims to break barriers by providing upskilling opportunities to students who have limited access to STEM education.

"We are thrilled with the success of our Peruse Unboxes workshop at the Portmore HEART Academy and it was remarkable to see our vision for more inclusivity in STEM come to reality as we listened to a diverse cohort of students, including those who are deaf, present their websites that they created in a few hours," said Sheryl-Ann Thomas-Scott, Managing Director of Original Peruse Limited.

"The engagement and enthusiasm from the participants showcase the importance of these trainings for students who have limited access to affordable and impactful STEM education due to personal cost constraints, under resourced schools and limited internet access," emphasised Thomas-Scott.

Students expressed their appreciation for the workshop experience.

"I appreciated learning how to create a website without coding…,” “…I liked getting to interact with my group members, hearing their thoughts and working together to create the website was invaluable…”,"No one was left out. Everyone was encouraged to participate," one student said. 

Peruse Unboxes Workshop Series is designed to create a vibrant community of parents, teachers, and mentors dedicated to upskilling students with the essential STEM and digital literacy skills, essential for Jamaica to compete in the global labour market. The series not only focuses on skill development but also improves student well-being, aligning with UNICEF's emphasis on digital literacy for child well-being and the development of skills needed to tackle socio-economic challenges.