New Website launched for Jamaican Alumni associations in Florida

South Florida Caribbean News March 29, 2010

MIAMI – The Coalition of Jamaican Alumni Associations in Florida have now launched its own website, www.cjaaf.info which would now serve as the hub for information on the alumni groups in the region.

This coalition of Florida based alumni groups has now joined the ranks of fraternities in the Diaspora who have created a network for information including the Union of Jamaican Alumni Associations (UJAA) in New York, and the Alliance of Jamaican Alumni Associations (AJAA) in Toronto.

This newly constructed site will host myriad of information on the nearly 50 Jamaican alumni associations here across Florida State – addresses, calendar activities, a monthly newsletter detailing features on the projects and initiatives of the various groups as well as updates on the respective educational institutions in Jamaica.

According to Dr. Rupert Rhodd, co-founder and editor, the website will help the coalition of alma maters in their mission to provide broad based collaborative community initiatives and will also help in effective and successful planning of events throughout the year. “When we support each other our efforts tend to be more successful, and when we are successful in our fundraisers, our alma mater, Jamaica, and the local communities in the Diaspora benefit immensely” he added.

Doug Streete of the Florida chapter of the Calabar High School alumni also endorsed the process noting that “we should seek to make this website the central clearinghouse for information on the Florida-based associations”.

The website is the brainchild of Dr. Rhodd, and Dr. Sandra Schrouder, both Wolmerian graduates and have for the past five years, published the monthly newsletter of the Jamaica Alumni Associations in Florida.

Dr. Rhodd was enthused that the site had now become a reality and encouraged members of alumni associations as well as Jamaicans at large to take interest in an effort to undertake more collective endeavours, he added. More and more alumni groups were being established to support of education in Jamaica and the communities in South Florida, he explained.

In congratulating the editors of the newly constructed website, Consul General Sandra Grant Griffiths praised both innovators and facilitators for a readily available channel for exchange, promotion, collaboration and consolidation of projects, among all the alumni groups as well as providing information to the wider Diasporic community.