Dr. Carolyn Gomes (left), chairperson of the Access to Information (ATI) Advisory Committee of Stakeholders is in an entertaining mood as she keeps (from second left) Diane Young, public education manager of the ATI unit; Aylair Livingston, director of the ATI Unit, and Karin Cooper, corporate affairs manager at the Gleaner Company, laughing. Occasion was a luncheon at The Gleaner Company's North Street offices, downtown Kingston, to announce a partnership with the ATI Stakeholders Committee and the newspaper. The aim is to launch an ATI students' challenge in 12 schools in September. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
TWELVE HIGH schools across the island are participating in a competition which will see dozens of students using the Access to Information (ATI) Act to get information relating to their communities and the country in general.
The competition, which was outlined yesterday at the corporate offices of the Gleaner Company Ltd., is being sponsored by the newspaper and the Access to Information Advisory Stakeholders Committee, with support from the Access to Information Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Karin Cooper, corporate affairs manager at The Gleaner Company, said the aim of the Access to Information Students' Challenge competition is to "bring the Access to Information Act into the forefront of people's minds; so people can know that the Act does work and that they can use it."
Explaining how the competition will work, Mrs. Cooper said that each school will have at least one team comprising four students and one teacher. Four questions will be submitted by each school to the Access to Information officer at the relevant ministry or state agency.
The teams, she said, will then provide The Gleaner Company and the ATI Stakeholders Committee with: a copy of the application letters submitted to the relevant ATI officers; specific reasons for the questions selected; and a log book.
INITIATIVE LAUDED
The teams will be judged on the following criteria: the most practical request; the request most relevant to the area and parish or to the school; the request with the highest national importance; the best kept log; the two teams with the best overall projects; and the teachers of the two teams with the best overall projects.
Dr. Carolyn Gomes, chairperson of the ATI Advisory Committee of Stakeholders, lauded the initiative. "What we found is that access to information is wonderful, but it is distant because people don't know and understand what they can do and get under this act," she said.
The Gleaner's Editor-in-Chief, Garfield Grandison, said the competition would serve as a means to stimulate students at this level to ferret for information.
Kingston College teacher, Rupert Hemmings also supported the competition. "This is going to be a culture when it gets going. The fact is that Jamaicans really don't care what is happening around them. It is about time as a people we become more concerned with what is happening in government and it has to start in the schools," he said.
Other teachers present at the luncheon were Sharon Gardener of Campion College, Devon Graham from Guy's Hill High School, Billington Bryan of Wolmer's Boys, Brenton McLean of Dunoon Technical, Cloverlyn Newman of Glenmuir High School and Horace Gaynor of St. George's College.
