A WEST Belfast primary school is to receive a £10,000 donation to help purchase technology equipment for pupils thanks to the Irish American Partnership.
The announcement was made on Wednesday at St Joseph's Primary School, Slate Street, during a visit from a delegation from the Irish American Partnership which included former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and former US Ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin.
The funding will be donated to The Goliath Trust which was established in August 2017 which seeks to raise funds to help address the persistent problem of educational underachievement in the North’s most disadvantaged areas.
Members of the Trust consult with schools, educators, parents, the churches, community leaders and wider civic society to identify how they can help.
The Goliath Trust currently supports 23 schools across Belfast.
Ray Hayden, Treasurer of Goliath Trust, said: "We seek to address educational underachievement in republican and loyalist areas. We depend largely on support from others.
"One of our big initiatives is the summer reading school which is about keeping reading levels up during the summer holidays. We also have a partnership with the Lyric Theatre who provide 350 places every year for the first showing of the pantomime and we pay for the transport costs."
St Joseph's PS, Slate Street Principal Jim McCann, said: "Our school continues to grow and is doing really well. This is still an area of high deprivation and we still depend on others to ensure that every child that comes through these doors has the best opportunity available to them. We know education is the way out.
"New technology is so important for us and this donation will go a long way in ensuring our children have more access to learning opportunities using it.
"We are living in a digital age and there is a digital divide also in society between the have and have nots.
"We don't want our children to be left behind because they didn't have the technology opportunities compared to others."
