The Ministry of Education, under its Adopt-A-School initiative, is collaborating with Unicomer (Trinidad) Limited and the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) to offer free vision screening to students of forty (40) of the eighty (80) Primary Schools which are part of the MOE’s one hundred and six (106) Schools of Focus.
With TTMA’s support, eye glasses will be provided for those students in need.
The cheque handover ceremony for this pilot project, took place at the Education Ministry’s head office on St Vincent Street, Port of Spain.
The TTMA provided Unicomer Limited, parent company of Courts Optical, with a cheque valued at $20,000 TT, the first installment of a $90,000 TT commitment towards their corporate social responsibility project called ‘Brighter View’.
This Unicomer project is dedicated to improving eye care and visual health by offering eye exams, frames, lenses and other vision products to students in vulnerable situations or settings.
This project is intended to provide equity in educational opportunity by ensuring that the students who need it most receive support to achieve their fullest potential. In many cases, vision impairment goes undetected and hampers academic performance. As such, the MoE has committed to rolling out a vision screening exercise to identify students that can benefit from such an intervention.
While speaking at the cheque handover ceremony, Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly thanked all the stakeholders who supported the students and continue to ensure their optimum performance in the classroom.
She said: “Let us afford our children the invaluable opportunity to be healthy, to learn, and to achieve excellence. The Ministry is steadfast in its dedication to doing all we can to guarantee that the young minds of our nation are equipped with the necessary resources to realise their full potential.”