Steer Town-based non-profit organisation Helping Young People Evolve (HYPE), is the recipient of a charity donation from distribution and manufacturing company, Derrimon Trading Limited, through its “Derrimon Dreams” Christmas promotion

HYPE, established in March 2020, has blossomed under the leadership of director Alma Scott, and currently serves 150 young Jamaicans based in and around Ocho Rios and Steer Town.

At the base of the organisation is the purpose of providing food and clothing to young people in need that reside in and around the community.

The vision they share is not to facilitate dependence by continuing to only feed the children, but to couple this with fostering an independent spirit.

HYPE manages to achieve this through facilitating the growth of the skills necessary, to gain stability with an aim that they can one day be able to feed themselves and by extension their families.

All proceeds currently aid the organisation in benefiting the lives of the children they support.

It is with this in mind that Derrimon Trading, through its Christmas competition, chose by way of their first prize winner, Kerry Ann Thomas, to also donate to a charity organisation, in which she selected HYPE. 

General manager of distribution at Derrimon, Sheldon Simpson, shared, “Serving and developing our community is very important to us. We are committed to doing business responsibly and conducting ourselves in ways that earns the trust and respect of our customers, partners and neighbours. We decided that instead of running a consumer promotion that only rewarded one winner, we could also find a way to continue to support our communities as well. We are thrilled that our winner was able to nominate a charity that helps the youth in rural Jamaica. We hope to do more in the future to support and inspire our young people.” 

In an interview, Alma Scott, HYPE director explained that she learned about the competition through Thomas, who was asked to submit the name of an organisation so that Derrimon could reach out to advise them of their donation.

The HYPE organisation was subsequently contacted by the team at Derrimon and presented with several food items that would assist with the outreach of the organisation.

As the institution seeks to meet its vision, in the coming year, the HYPE organisation seeks to expand its territories.

“The major project we have set out to achieve this year is to build the HYPE Skills and Training Centre. The organisation has been granted a spot of land by the [former] Mayor of St Ann’s Bay, Councillor Michael Belnavis, on which we plan to build to facilitate this venture. We also hope to establish this building to engage the children in various forms of skills training namely, art and craft, sewing of clothing and drapery, baking and decoration of cakes as well as others,” Scott disclosed.

Persons can assist the organisation financially, through the provision of clothing, food, material to assist in the construction of the training centre, as well as equipment and machinery that can be utilised in developing the skills of the young people.