Joe Issa Breaking Vicious Circles through Education, Imagination

Creative thinker Joe Issa has argued that whatever the nominator there’s a denoinator to cancel it out, stating in the case of life’s quagmires education is the most common denominator. 

“In life one encounters many no-end situations, vicious circles that seem impervious to solutions. But I don’t think so. I believe whetever quandary one is in, education can solve it, even if gradually and eventually.

“Education is a powerful tool that can get you out of many predicaments – from getting caught in a poverty trap and being rejected by your family and friends, to unending financial difficulties and disputes – the kinds that make you want to give up.

“Often times the situation requires a little innovation, so we have to find creative solutions, all of which, though, can be found through education,” Issa postulates, in an interview.

A businessman and philantropist, Issa has put his money where his mouth is – educating children – and is notably doing so for those least able to help themselves, and at an early stage, well before they become concerned with life’s sticky situations.

Among the many initiatives through which Issa gives back to the education of underprivileged Jamaican children ts the Educate the Children Fund, which he formed in 1987 while attending the London School of Economics (LSE) in the United Kingdom. It sought to raise funds to provide school books to needy children in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

In the new millennium, Issa founded Global Education 2000 to help Jamaican schools, by partnering them with their US counterparts. The initiative has resulted in the implementation of various exchange programmes which have benefited several Jamaican schools.

Issa has also formed a university scholarship fund to enable disadvantaged Jamaican children to study in the United States.

Since 2003, Issa’s various charities have operated through Cool Charities, a subsidiary of his Cool Group of over 50 companies headquartered in Ocho Rios, St Ann.

Himself, a high achiever at school and university, Issa graduated in 1988 and Valedictorian Cum Laude with a number of awards, including the youngest resident Jamaican to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

He went on to cop many others, including the Young Hotelier of the World 1994 at the age of 29 years, and helped his young staff to buy and develop land under a project called "People Development Programme".

He has also hosted National Youth Service camps and advocated for the use of technology to empower individuals, especislly children.

According to Issa, even where those initiatives are clearly benefiting the present generation – young and old – “the bigger picture is that they will be put in a better position to assist and influence subsequent generations in avoiding life’s dilemmas.”