The Beautiful Children of Jamaica – ART Excel in the Caribbean

We've had the pure pleasure of teaching some of the, arguably, most adorable children on the planet over the past couple of weeks.  The children, aged between 8 and 11 years of age, from the RISE Foundation in Kingston and Unity Primary School in Good Hope are so full of innocence and enthusiasm, it was infectious.  Jamaicans are very affectionate as a people and these kids exemplified this quality.  Within the first hour of our 4-day, 8-hour courses, we received several hugs and kisses.  They never wanted us to leave at the end of each day’s session and truly had trouble understanding why the class had to end at all after the fourth day.  They were also very bright, eager to participate and answer questions in the class.  This was a refreshing contrast to the most of the older teenagers we had been teaching in Kingston. 

Many of the kids displayed confidence, strong leadership potential and maturity for their ages.  Particularly after teaching the course at the RISE Foundation, we felt compelled to find out more about some of the kids and see if we could help them.  Rise Foundation (www.risejamaica.org) is an organization that adopts impoverished communities in Kingston and helps them through a variety of programs – social services, violence prevention, educational services (after-school and study programs), addiction disorder services, etc.  It is a well-known and respected organization established in 1989.

During our course at RISE, there were three kids in the group that we were teaching that struck us.  We decided to approach RISE about creating a scholarship program for kids within their purview that showed promise in four key areas:

• ·      academic excellence,
• ·      leadership potential,
• ·      demonstration of human values,
• ·      and reasonable family support structure at home

After our experiences in Jamaica teaching kids at schools like Haile Selassie and juvenile detention centers like Metcalfe, it was clear to us that having some stable and supportive family structure would be critical to make these kids successful.  No matter how much funding we could drive, it seemed very difficult to be able to realize the benefits without family support.   The experts at RISE agreed.  They were excited about the idea of the scholarship program and within short order we had face-to-face meetings with the three children that we identified and their parents.  As we learned about the family situations and heard about the ambitions and desires of the children, our hearts melted.  Though we thought we would initially pilot the program with one scholarship recipient this year, after hearing their stories, we decided we would have to work out supporting all three.  RISE gently nudged us to add a few more kids to the list that had similar characteristics to the kids we identified but couldn’t meet in person.   This brought out a dilemma as we’re working with limited funds and we very much envision supporting these children through their education needs for the foreseeable future and not only helping them get through school in 2013.  This includes finding a way to provide strong mentorship and build these kids into role models for the future generation in Jamaica.  We believe this is one way to create a self-sustaining culture if we were to empower those that demonstrate human values and carry those values to the next generation(s).  A small ripple can lead to waves of change in ways we haven’t even imagined.   

With RISE’s help with administration of funds, accounting for expenditures, and monitoring the children’s progress, we feel that this scholarship program has legs, as long as we can show success in these first few kids.  Though our visit is coming to a close, it seems that our connection and responsibilities in Jamaica are far from over.  The nice thing about Jamaica is that there are a lot of opportunities to make a difference.  A little goes a long way if it’s channeled well.  This is something we are learning more about every day that we are here.