Page 7 - JWN

“The PAD team always has several priorities and critical deadlines. And so we have learned to focus, divide and conquer, and laugh through it all,” smiled McClarthy Allen.
“In many ways, the PAD team is the embodiment of the Jamaican spirit – ‘likkle but Tallawah’; we are indeed dynamic. Each of us, agile and dexterous, diligent and resilient and always willing to grow. At PAD we never lose site of the deliverables, the team is strongly encouraged to get out of the comfort zone, stretch, grow and build personal capacity.”
Those qualities generally stand out in the execution of another vital function, their JWN Foundation duties in ‘transforming lives for a better Jamaica’.
Established in 2012, the JWN Foundation operates under three pillars – Education, Social Inclusion and Culture – and focuses specifically on developing areas surrounding the company’s business at Spanish Town Road, New Yarmouth and Appleton Estate. Last year it dedicated a lot of its work in the area of education.
“For the JWN Foundation we have quadrupled the number of community scholarships, streamlined the operations and activities and deepened our reach and connection in all JWN communities,” explained McClarthy Allen.
“Through programmes like the ‘Conversations for Greatness’ and the ‘Expression through the Arts’ series we are going further and beginning to address some of the social ills that plague the Jamaican society.”
One major highlight was the Foundation’s inaugural fundraiser, ‘Expressions Through Art: Protecting OUR Children’, which included a silent auction of JWN’s premium brands. There was also a movie screening of two short films, both written and produced by Jamaicans, which registered the ills of abuse against children and other groups in our society.
The issue was brought into clearer focus through the sharp increase in the number of women murdered,
on a national level; and child abuse in our communi- ties, which were among those recording the highest number of cases. Additionally, there has been a recent spike in the number of girls abducted by ‘taxi’ operators in Portmore.
The PAD also provided an internal link that informs the entire team as explained by McClarthy, “In 2017, we produced 20 issues of the In High Spirits Newsletter, connecting JWN’s activities in the outside world with our internal audience or partners, and in so doing supports the Human Resource division’s attempts to improve internal communications.”
She continued, “There is always room for improvement and growth and going into 2018 you will see some changes that will help us deliver even more support to the business’ internal communications objective and driving the building of brand equity for the JWN Foundation by doing more through the programmes and activities targeting our communities.”