Cayman Islands’ LIFE gives gift of Literacy to East End Primary students

From Cayman Islands Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports, Agriculture and Lands

Santa made a special surprise visit to East End Primary School (EEPS) this week to present each of the school’s 92 students with two books for Christmas.  St. Nick was accompanied by his helpers from Cayman’s literacy charity, Literacy Is For Everyone (LIFE) who donated the books that were given to the children. 

Hon. Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, Minister for Education said, “It pleases me to see the generosity of LIFE not just during the giving season, but throughout the entire year. It is through private and public collaborations such as this one that we can continue to strengthen our student’s love for reading and inspire them to be lifelong learners.”

“This donation from LIFE is just another example of the charity’s commitment to literacy in our schools.  East End Primary School has benefited greatly from LIFE’s support throughout the years. The organisation has donated Levelled Literacy Intervention kits to assist with intensive support for those students in need; sponsored Partners in Print, a parent education programme; provided high quality books to assist in building our collection in the school library; and  contributed levelled books to ensure students have access to high quality children’s literature in classroom libraries,” said Jessica Jackson, EEPS Deputy Principal. 

“The idea to give students books as Christmas presents is a result of both LIFE and EEPS’ desire for them to have great books to read at home along with the access they already have at school.  We hope they’ll each find some quiet time this Christmas holiday to enjoy them,” she explained. 

Ms Jackson said that in order to keep the gifts as a surprise for students, LIFE came to EEPS with their collection of books and classroom teachers used their knowledge of students’ interests and abilities to select two special books for each student. LIFE team members then wrapped all the books and tagged them with the students’ names. 

“At LIFE our focus is on making a difference, one book, one child, one classroom at a time. Our holistic approach to literacy in our public schools focuses on impact and accountability and this has worked very well with EEPS,” said Marilyn Conolly, Executive Director for LIFE. “We are very happy to give the gift of adventure, curiosity and knowledge through books to the children of EEPS this Christmas.  The individual, personal nature of the donation is important to us because children don’t just need books; they need books that they are interested in reading.”

Book titles included The Gruffalo, A Squash and a Squeeze, Mighty Trucks, Olivia, Splat the Cat, Dork Diaries, Unicorn Academy, Geronimo Stilton, Captain Underpants, The Apollo 11 Moon Landing and many more popular favourites.