The Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion is set to bring cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and hands-on learn­ing to five ad­di­tion­al spe­cial schools be­fore the end of the year, as part of its on­go­ing mis­sion to pro­mote dig­i­tal in­clu­sion for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties.

The ben­e­fi­cia­ry schools—La­dy Ho­choy Co­corite, Es­he’s Learn­ing Cen­tre, Cas­cade School for the Deaf, Ser­vol Sun­shine Hill, and St Do­minic’s Trade School—will each re­ceive ful­ly equipped In­no­va­tion Labs. These labs will fea­ture new com­put­ers, smart boards, vir­tu­al re­al­i­ty equip­ment, as­sis­tive tech­nol­o­gy ac­ces­sories, and spe­cialised fur­ni­ture, cre­at­ing in­clu­sive learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments de­signed to en­gage stu­dents and en­hance their ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

Re­cent­ly, prin­ci­pals from the five schools vis­it­ed an ex­ist­ing In­no­va­tion Lab at Palmera’s Learn­ing Cen­tre in St. James to see the pro­gramme in ac­tion. Guid­ed by IT teacher Faith Jack­son and Prin­ci­pal Ear­lene Phillip, the vis­it­ing ed­u­ca­tors ob­served how tech­nol­o­gy is in­te­grat­ed in­to dai­ly lessons and how stu­dents are us­ing dig­i­tal tools to ex­pand their learn­ing.

Prin­ci­pal Phillip de­scribed the im­pact at Palmera’s as trans­for­ma­tion­al:

“The In­no­va­tion Lab has rev­o­lu­tionised our teach­ing and learn­ing. Our stu­dents are tak­ing every op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­clude tech in their dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties. The smart board is a favourite, but just hav­ing com­put­ers and in­ter­net ac­cess where they can re­search and learn new things is fan­tas­tic.”

Di­ana Mathu­ra-Hob­son, Project Man­ag­er for the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, em­pha­sised the pro­gramme’s fo­cus on eq­ui­ty:

“These five schools join a move­ment of ed­u­ca­tors com­mit­ted to dig­i­tal in­clu­sion. Through the In­no­va­tion Labs pro­gramme, our goal is to en­sure that stu­dents with spe­cial needs have equal ac­cess to all the op­por­tu­ni­ties that tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides.”

The In­no­va­tion Labs ini­tia­tive is part of the Foun­da­tion’s Dig­i­tal Cit­i­zen­ship port­fo­lio, which seeks to em­pow­er youth and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties with the skills, tools, and con­fi­dence to par­tic­i­pate ful­ly in the dig­i­tal world. In­clud­ing these new ad­di­tions, the pro­gramme has now in­stalled 20 In­no­va­tion Labs at spe­cial schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­te­grat­ing ac­ces­si­ble and adap­tive tech­nolo­gies in­to spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion na­tion­wide.

By equip­ping these schools with mod­ern dig­i­tal tools and train­ing ed­u­ca­tors to use them ef­fec­tive­ly, the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion is help­ing stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties un­lock their po­ten­tial and en­gage mean­ing­ful­ly in a tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven world.