Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister Homer Davis has put contractors and workers on notice that he wants no discord that may delay work being done on two schools in his St James Southern constituency.

He was speaking on Thursday during a ground-breaking and handover ceremony at Lethe Primary and Infant School. Davis made it clear that he was not casting aspersions on the contractor for the project. In fact, he told those gathered that the contractor, Odel Allen, has had a very good track record in paying workers. Davis stressed, however, that he would nevertheless be keeping an eye on how things progress.

With funding provided by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), rehabilitative work will be undertaken on the sanitation block at the school. The $12.5-million project will see work done on the bathrooms and the roof, along with the construction of stands for water tanks.

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) is providing grants of up to $100,000 to operators of micro enterprises in targeted communities under its Integrated Community Development Project (ICDP II).

Eligible individuals must be between 18 and 30 years old and from the communities of Salt Spring, Anchovy, Norwood, and Mount Salem in St James; Treadlight in Clarendon; and August Town, Greenwich Town and Denham Town in Kingston and St Andrew.

Managing Director, JSIF, Omar Sweeney, told JIS News that the grants are being provided through cycle three of the Enterprise Youth Development Grant initiative, which is funded to the tune of $15 million.

“These are not cash grants but based on needs and what persons would point out as their difficulty. They may receive equipment, training in accounting and budgeting, managing the business, marketing [and] customer service,” explained Sweeney.

He said that successful applicants can also receive support to “register themselves as a company”.

He is encouraging persons to apply, especially “if you have a business… and you think that you need an investment. Sometimes you just need a refrigerator, hairdryer, a vacuum or a power washer machine to allow your business to manoeuvre”, noting that they can also receive resources to make their business pivot.

Sweeny told JIS News that if the support being provided will enable the business operator to employ an additional person, then that is a “big bonus, in terms of being able to receive the grant”.

The deadline to apply for the grant is Friday, July 8.

Additional details, including application requirements and forms, are available on the JSIF's website at www.jsif.org.