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ST JAMES, Jamaica — In a powerful display of community resilience and tribute to a beloved local figure, thousands of participants gathered along Howard Cooke Boulevard on Thursday morning for the annual event named in honor of Jill Stewart, the late wife of Sandals Group Executive Chairman Adam Stewart. This year’s gathering marked one of the largest turnouts in the event’s history, even coming just months after Hurricane Melissa left widespread destruction across the parish.

Aston Stewart, Jill and Adam Stewart’s son, was unable to compete in the run segment of the event this year due to a persistent, nagging knee injury. Even so, he joined the crowd by walking the full route alongside his father, sharing his joy at the event’s ongoing growth. “It’s great, very nice to see all the people that came and how it’s growing every year, we really appreciate it,” Aston told Jamaica’s Observer Online. “It really is a lot of fun, it’s good. It’s awesome to see it grow every year and I would definitely encourage more young people to join up.”

By the day before the event, registration numbers had already hit 9,500, with total attendees on the route surpassing 10,000, Adam Stewart told reporters. That marks a substantial jump from 2023, when the event drew 7,000 registered participants and roughly 10,000 total attendees. For Stewart, the massive turnout this year carries extra meaning, coming on the heels of the hurricane’s destructive impact on the region.

“Coming off the back of Hurricane Melissa, this is just a testimony that nothing can break us in Montego Bay or Jamaica,” Stewart said.

Jill Stewart, a trained educator, passed away in 2023 after a courageous multi-year battle with cancer. The annual event was created to honor her legacy, which centers on her two core passions: improving public health and expanding educational opportunity for Jamaicans. Stewart said the outpouring of community support for the gathering has left his entire family feeling humbled and grateful.

“The family and I are just overwhelmed by the love and the support, and her legacy continues to be inspiring to people through health and academics. She was a trained teacher, and those were her two passions and loves,” Stewart explained. “It’s overwhelming, I’ve never seen so many people on the road at one time.”

Stewart also extended public gratitude to all stakeholders who made the 2024 event possible, including lead organizer Janet Silvera and her full event team, the municipal government of Montego Bay, Mayor Richard Vernon, local law enforcement, and every volunteer and participant who turned out to carry forward Jill Stewart’s mission. Before her passing, Jill Stewart made headlines when she publicly celebrated her husband’s receipt of the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander, a national honor recognizing Adam Stewart’s decades of outstanding service to Jamaica’s tourism and hospitality sector.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — During an address to the country’s House of Representatives as part of the annual Sectoral Debate on April 28, Jamaica’s Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change Matthew Samuda has sounded a urgent alarm over what he calls an existential structural crisis plaguing the nation’s water infrastructure: non-revenue water (NRW).

NRW refers to treated, processed potable water that is pumped through the national network but never reaches a paying customer, typically lost to widespread leaks, aging pipe infrastructure, illegal connections, and inaccurate metering across the system. Samuda emphasized that the scale of this issue poses a serious long-term threat to Jamaica’s entire water management ecosystem if left unaddressed.

“I want to be direct about one of the most serious structural problems in Jamaica’s water system: non-revenue water,” Samuda told lawmakers, adding that the ongoing leakage drives up avoidable energy consumption for pumping uncollected water, tightens existing water supply constraints for Jamaican households, and pushes the state-run National Water Commission toward long-term financial instability.

“NRW is acknowledged as a crisis that we must fix with alacrity,” Samuda declared.

To counter this decades-old challenge, the Jamaican government has rolled out an 11-year, island-wide NRW Reduction Programme with a total investment of more than US$340 million. The initiative’s core target is cutting the national NRW rate from its current 71% to a manageable 30% by 2035. According to Samuda, the multi-phase project is already in the international competitive bidding phase for procurement, with pre-implementation preparations well underway.

The minister outlined clear projected annual financial gains once the program is fully implemented: a total of J$10.7 billion in net returns each year, broken down into J$7.7 billion in additional revenue from improved metering, billing and collection systems, J$2.8 billion in annual electricity cost savings from cutting unnecessary pumping, and J$167 million in savings on water treatment chemicals.

Notably, early gains from pilot initiatives in Jamaica’s most populated urban centers — Kingston, St Andrew, and Portmore — have already demonstrated the program’s viability, Samuda confirmed. Those early projects have already begun delivering the projected revenue and cost savings, building a clear case for national expansion. “The case for taking this programme island-wide is not complicated. It pays for itself,” Samuda added.

On April 29, at the HEART Eastern TVET Institute’s Stony Hill Campus in St Andrew, Jamaica, a landmark graduation ceremony marked a major milestone for the country’s digital workforce development push: 120 trainees from the fifth cohort of the Amber HEART Academy walked away with industry-aligned digital certifications built to launch their careers in the global technology sector.

The programme, delivered through a collaborative public-private partnership between Jamaican investment firm Amber Group and national training body HEART/NSTA Trust, specialized in building core competencies in Web and Mobile Application Development, a skill set in high demand across the global digital economy. Notably, 90 of the 120 graduates are active members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), reflecting the military’s growing commitment to upgrading its technological operational capacity for the digital age.

Addressing the graduating class at the ceremony, Jamaica’s Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, extended commendations to the new graduates, framing their achievement as a clear signal that Jamaica is prepared to compete and thrive in the coming digital future. “You are not waiting on the world to change… you are going to use what you have learnt to change the world,” she told attendees, noting that the certification equips graduates to fully participate in the digital economy. Beyond earning credentials, Minister Morris Dixon emphasized that the programme was designed to position Jamaican workers to compete on a global stage while empowering them to solve pressing local challenges. She reiterated the Jamaican government’s deliberate strategy of investing in youth as the core engine of national development, reminding graduates that the opportunity was made possible by public investment, and urging them to create economic value and lift their local communities through their new skills.

Minister Morris Dixon also used the event to highlight ongoing organizational reforms at HEART/NSTA Trust, pointing to the rollout of a modernized training framework called Apprenticeship 3.0. This new hybrid model shifts traditional training structures to prioritize deeper private sector engagement and hands-on practical experience, aligning training outcomes more closely with the actual needs of hiring employers across sectors.

For his part, Amber Group Founder and Chief Executive Ambassador Dushyant Savadia shared the transformational vision that launched the academy, noting the initiative’s rapid growth and impact has been made possible by the strong public-private partnership model. Savadia added that the programme is already evolving to keep pace with shifting global technology trends, with plans to integrate specialized artificial intelligence (AI) training into future curricula. He encouraged graduates to build on their foundational coding skills by pursuing the new AI-focused training opportunities to remain competitive in a fast-changing industry.

Dr Taneisha Ingleton, Managing Director of the HEART/NSTA Trust, echoed the importance of the programme for national progress, noting that the fifth cohort’s success reflects both the personal discipline of the graduates and intentional strategic workforce planning aligned with Jamaica’s digital transition. Citing global projections that millions of new jobs will emerge in AI and emerging digital technologies over the coming decade, she emphasized that the academy is directly preparing Jamaican workers to fill these roles. Ingleton also highlighted the programme’s consistent growth, from just 27 graduates in the inaugural cohort to 120 in the fifth class, as proof that sustained cross-sector partnerships aligned with national development priorities deliver measurable results.

JDF Brigade Commander Brigadier Mahatma Williams framed the graduation as a critical milestone for the armed forces, noting that upskilling service members in digital skills is key to strengthening JDF operational readiness in an increasingly digital threat landscape. He called the event a transition “from learning to application and from preparation to purpose”, committing the JDF to continued participation and support for the programme. Williams also praised the discipline and dedication of JDF trainees who participated in the programme, noting that the initiative is helping reshape public perceptions of military personnel as skilled technology professionals.

As Jamaica accelerates its push to transition to a digital, innovation-led national economy, the fifth cohort graduation of the Amber HEART Academy demonstrates how intentional public-private collaboration can close the digital skills gap, create accessible employment pathways for young people, and position the country to compete in the global technology sector.