If you live in or near Mahogany Street, which is on the border between the Lake Independence and Pickstock Constituencies, you'll know very well about the Samuel Haynes Institute for Excellence. It's a combination of a second chance opportunity, wrapped inside an after-school program which allows school children to take additional classes and get help with their homework.
Well this weekend, the institute got a major upgrade. It came in the form of the Leigh Richardson Knowledge Center, a newly built extension of the Samuel Haynes facility, which is equipped top-of-the-line computers.
It's is funded by the Japanese Government, and the Social Investment Fund. They opened it this weekend when Non-Resident Japanese Ambassador was in Belize. We attended the ceremony this weekend, and spoke with Pickstock Area Representative Wilfred Elrington:
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Area Rep., Pickstock
"After we had done the Samuel Haynes Institute of excellence, we immediately saw a need for more space and facility particularly to bring people up to speed with the digital age. So we knew that we had to build another one and then we thought of a deserving Belizean patriot to name it after. I think it was along with myself and the late Burt Tucker that we brain stormed and came up with the name Leigh Richardson. I was particularly in taking up with Leigh Richardson because in a low moment when I was in New York I think in the 80's I was getting a little 
discouraged and I told him I was going to leave politics. He came alive and said 'no Mr. Elrington you can't do that, what will happen to the people of Belize? You can't do that. You have to stay and help your people'. So I said after all these years he was so patriotic, so passionate about Belize that the least I can do is to continue any process and to name this building after him because most Belizeans don't know him. Actually he was the first chairman of the People's United Party, the 2nd leader of the party and he led the party for 2 consecutive terms and then he broke away in 1956. He broke away because the party made a move against him and this facility is equipped at the top floor with computers, it probably has about 50 computers up there. On the computers we have all the programs that the young kids need to use in school which is mathematics, English, social studies, those kinds of things. So they can go on the computer themselves, log into the programs and help to do their homework, their own research, whatever it is. It's a fascinating laboratory for the kids."
Daniel Ortiz
"And the involvement of the Japanese Embassy?"
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Area Rep., Pickstock
"The Japanese gave us the first grant towards this building which was about $222,000 BZ. When they gave us the grant, we approached them because we wanted them to help to manage the project. We didn't want to manage the project ourselves because with finance and project we always run into problems so we said to them 'can you manage this project for us?" and they said 'fine'. Somewhere between that initial initiative and a conclusion, they came up with the idea of expanding and putting in additional features through SIF and CDB. So that is how it came about that it became so expansive and so well developed."
The facility costs $716 thousand 960 dollars and as you heard, it is named after the trailblazing Politician Leigh Richardson, one of the founders of the PUP, who later broke away to form the Honduras Independence Party with Philip Goldson.
Email
Print