Philanthropist Dr Janice Johnson Dias rolls out five-year St James library overhaul

WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica-born academic and philanthropist Dr Janice Johnson Dias is putting money behind literacy and girls’ leadership, arguing that schooling is among the strongest tools available against crime and poverty.

As founder and president of the US-based GrassROOTS Community Foundation, she has mapped out a five-year programme to remake the St James Parish Library as a contemporary learning centre and to coach girls drawn from Flankers.

“I started to see two things happening in Jamaica: literacy rates were going down, and youth crime was going up,” said Johnson Dias, who is also a sociologist and professor at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “So, I asked the question: Could investing in literacy produce a positive outcome for young people?”

After reviewing places where weak literacy coincided with elevated youth offending, the foundation settled on St James, St Catherine and St Ann for sustained work built around public libraries.

“We met with all of the libraries in those parishes because public libraries are open to all, and every bit of research tells us that libraries can become safe, equitable, community-centered spaces,” she said.

Johnson Dias said the St James Parish Library is the foundation’s opening flagship. More than US$35,000 has already gone into improving the building, which now includes a fully fitted podcast studio.

“We built a podcast room here already because we know digital literacy is attractive to kids,” Johnson Dias told The Gleaner on Wednesday. “The podcast room is completed. What we now have to do is train staff to use the podcast room and then train young people to use the podcast room.”

She added that the reference area is next in line for a full overhaul.

“We’re going to fully renovate it (the reference section). You can’t have a new space and old books. You need a new space and new books,” she said. “That gives a feeling to the young people and to those who utilise it that somebody cares. You deserve to have a great space to just get lost in books.”

GrassROOTS has given the St James Parish Library more than 2,000 volumes and roughly 50,000 books islandwide.

“Every one of Jamaica’s 14 parish libraries has received 2,000 diverse books featuring black and brown children as the main characters,” said Johnson Dias. She traced the foundation’s Jamaican literacy drive to 2016 and the work of her daughter, Marley Dias, who launched the widely known #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign.

“In my work at GrassROOTS, I lead girls’ leadership development, and girls have to use their talents to solve a social issue.”

The library effort sits alongside the foundation’s leadership scheme for Flankers girls.

“The girls ... are engaged in the morning programme, and then in the afternoon, I am doing some girls’ leadership development work with them,” said Johnson Dias.

She said the scheme underscores how essential women and girls are to holding communities together.

“The people who are most left to care for communities are indeed girls and women,” she said. “What often happens is that they don’t take very good care of themselves as human beings, and so they are ill-positioned to lead because they often have mental and physical health effects that handicap them.

“What we know globally is that the poorest people on the planet, no matter which continent you’re on, are girls and women. Yet those who are asked the most of are girls and women,” she added.

Marilee Moodie, senior librarian at the St James Parish Library, said the partnership has reshaped both the physical plant and what the library offers.

“Dr Janice Johnson Dias has a passion for mentoring people. She is exceptionally passionate about literacy and young people, especially young girls, having access to information and being able to maximize their full potential and be the best person they can be,” said Moodie.