San Juan/Laventille Corporation to sanitise 56 schools

The San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation will oversee the sanitisation of the 56 schools under its purview in time for the physical reopening of schools on February 8.

On Monday, MP for Laventille West and Minister of Youth Development and National Services Fitzgerald Hinds was joined by councillors for the area and members of the corporation to launch the project at the Success Laventille Secondary School.

Praising the corporation's work, Hinds said if the corporation can do as much as it has with limited resources, then: "God knows what you can do with this reformed sector, and I am looking forward to it.”

He said funds from the soon-to-be-implemented property tax will help the corporation.

Kwesi Antoine, chair of the Public Health Sanitisation and the Environment Committee, said the project began on January 20.

He said this is not the first such effort undertaken by the corporation, since at the beginning of the pandemic, the corporation ensured homes for the elderly were sanitised as well.

The corporation also distributed 500 electronic tablets to students in the area, over 1,000 hampers to families affected by covid19 restrictions, and supplied water tanks to residents during the pandemic.

Corporation chairman Anthony Roberts said this project was not done on the instructions of the Ministry of Education.

“The San Juan/Laventille corporation took it up as an initiative,” he said.

“I spoke with the Minister (of Education) and wrote to the ministry to tell them what we were doing, and we did it free of charge.”

The corporation will sanitise 56 schools, including 46 primary schools, ten secondary schools and one college. Thirty-eight have already been sanitised and the rest should be completed by February 4.

Roberts said the project will not be a one-time-only deal, and the corporation will continue to sanitise as necessary.

Meera Sharief Sheik, principal medical and health officer posted at the corporation, said it is impossible to sanitise all 56 schools every day, but if the situation calls for it, it will be made available. He said, for example, if a student presents with symptoms, the school will be sanitised again.

Sheik said the corporation uses the chemical benzalkonium chloride, which is an ammonium compound used to disinfect and kill viruses and bacteria.

He said the sanitiser is very effective and its only known side effect is an allergic reaction. To prevent this, once the space has been sanitised, people are not allowed to enter for two to three hours.

Hinds commended the corporation on its leadership in responding to the Ministry of Education’s announcement of the physical reopening of schools.

“I am advised that the corporation is as good as they come,” he said, “doing the best under the circumstances.”

He said he knew instinctively, from the very beginning of the pandemic, that (the lack of) personal hygiene would contribute to the spread of the virus. “Since then, the word 'sanitisation' has become a household name. It is part of the new normal.

“We are made to wear our masks, we are told and taught not to touch our faces, and generally speaking, by the example of the corporation, not just personal hygiene but hygienic observations of the spaces we occupy has played a tremendous role in combating covid19.”

He said the extent to which people sanitise and keep sanitising will help prevent the spread of the virus.

He went on, “We now hear the concept of 'the bubble,' and I imagine the principal and the ministry is creating a bubble, so when the children come into the space, it is kept sanitised and (students) follow a regime to maintain the hygienic standard in this bubble so that face-to-face learning can resume.”