ONE OF THIS ISLAND’S leading Pentecostal churches is looking at setting up a primary school.
Senior pastor of the Abundant Life Assembly, Dr Ivan Broomes, has indicated that plans are in the preliminary stages for the primary/secondary school, which at this stage is expected to cost $7 million.
“We’re looking at an elementary/secondary school. We’ve gotten the papers all passed and ready to go, but given the downturn in the economy we have held back.”
He said the school would be located on part of the church’s five-acre site in Bank Hall, St Michael.
“We want to knock down the annex later this year, and the engineers have to do the tests that they have to do and then we go from there. It is quite an undertaking given the times. We are looking at $7 million,” Broomes said.
The decision by Abundant Life to set up its own school is but a part of the expansion of religious organisations to set up education institutes. There are at least eight schools at both the primary and secondary levels in Barbados which are attached to various Christian and Muslim faiths.
Broomes said about 400 primary level pupils were expected to be the first batch when the school was eventually completed.
“We don’t know [when it will finish] because we want to pay as we go. We don’t want to owe anybody. We might [go to the bankers], but only for what we can handle. We don’t want to take a big loan and then be saddled with that.
“But, believe it or not, people of faith when they see something being accomplished they come on board, and they are very generous with their giving. It has happened in the past and that’s just the way it is in church life,” Broomes pointed out.
