When for­mer min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte vis­it­ed the Mor­vant/ Laven­tille Sec­ondary School in Sep­tem­ber last year, he said he saw more than just class­rooms.

Le Hunte, who re­cent­ly re­signed as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor at the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), said he al­so saw de­ter­mined stu­dents and ed­u­ca­tors, led by the Prin­ci­pal, who “worked tire­less­ly de­spite lim­it­ed re­sources.”

“Prin­ci­pal (Car­lan) Teles­ford, your stead­fast com­mit­ment is noth­ing short of hero­ic, it is your lead­er­ship that has in­spired us all to act,” he said on Tues­day dur­ing a hand­ing-over cer­e­mo­ny at the school’s com­pound.

How­ev­er, to give the stu­dents the up­grade they de­serve, Le Hunte said he knew that the School Im­prove­ment Project was not a one-man task, which is why he sought as­sis­tance from sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing ANSA McAL.

“It would take coali­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion of dream­ers and do­ers each play­ing their part and so it be­gan,” he said.

He first ap­proached the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) as the Adopt-a-School Pro­gramme aligns with the im­prove­ment project and was giv­en the ap­proval.

Le Hunte al­so ap­proached the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) Lennox Rat­tans­ingh who could not as­sist fi­nan­cial­ly but in­sist­ed on in­stalling the nec­es­sary equip­ment.

“He said boss, I have no mon­ey, I can’t give a black cent but I can give you some re­sources if you pro­vide the help, if you pro­vide the mon­ey,” he said.

The sec­ondary school lo­cat­ed on Pel­i­can Ex­ten­sion Road, Mor­vant, re­ceived 106 fans across class­rooms, labs, and com­mon ar­eas, a new Wi-Fi net­work, and 20 com­put­ers for the school’s li­brary.

Le Hunte said, in all, $500,000 was raised.

“It took the gen­eros­i­ty of many to turn this vi­sion in­to re­al­i­ty,” Le Hunte stat­ed as he men­tioned the 40 anony­mous donors.

Ac­cord­ing to Le Hunte, the ma­jor con­tri­bu­tions to the im­prove­ment project came from ANSA McAL Ltd, the IDB, and dis­count­ed ser­vices from con­trac­tors as well as sup­pli­ers.

Le Hunte said when he ap­proached An­tho­ny Sab­ga III, Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, he did not hes­i­tate to as­sist and even do­nat­ed more than the ten com­put­ers re­quest­ed.

“He said, ‘well Robert, ten com­put­ers will not be enough, that will def­i­nite­ly not work for that stu­dent-to-com­put­er ra­tio’, he said put me down for 20 com­put­ers,” Le Hunte shared.

He said they were al­so able to sup­port the Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (AL­TA) which pro­vides free lit­er­a­cy class­es with ten com­put­ers as well.

“To each of you I say your kind­ness has writ­ten a new chap­ter in the sto­ry of this school,” Le Hunte said.

Mor­vant/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School prin­ci­pal Car­lan Teles­ford told Le Hunte and donors that the project did not on­ly ad­dress the im­me­di­ate in­fra­struc­tur­al needs at the school but al­so af­firmed the val­ue and po­ten­tial of the stu­dents.

“I am im­mense­ly grate­ful for the sup­port and com­mit­ment shown by all our part­ners who helped to make this vi­sion a re­al­i­ty,” she said.