Miss Samantha's Class

Please note: we do not have pictures of this site visit, I will try to post a video later on.

While I was away in Port Antonio last weekend, Everton spent some time in Nannyville, close to the UWI campus.

Nannyville seems calm now but there was a war there about three years ago. The streets seem to be calmer, cleaner and generally nicer. Everton surmises that the war was bad enough to make the community come together to rebuild and to keep the peace.

Knife and Allan brought Everton to see Miss Samantha, another one of Jamaica's unsung heroes, another face that does not appear in the news, and another story that does not get any airtime.

I listen to the radio for about an hour each morning, and it makes me crazy paranoid. I want to run out and get a security gate, a guard dog and a can of pepperspray! The news is very biased, and reports only the crime and the grit. Incidentally, many of the media companies also invest heavily on security systems companies.

THIS blog is to celebrate the good things that are happening in Jamaica, and our fellowship here is to learn from all the good that is here, to learn from all the everyday people who despite the negative circumstances, are fighting the good fight- often times without proper funding and support.

Miss Samantha is a woman in her thirties who has her own story. She came into the world of youth groups and volunteerism years ago because of her own experiences. Like Miss Cookie, Miss Pet and the other volunteers, Samantha saw a need in her own experiences and in her community and decided to do something about it. She became a mother a a young age and did not receive support from her family. One of her goals in this group is to offer parenting classes to older and newer parents, to help families communicate better.

The group Everton visited is called Nannyville Uprising Youths in Action (I love these names!) and it meets in a shared public space. Because of this, sometimes the group cannot meet because someone else is occupying the space. In addition, the space is one that requires a fee, and this is also a problem for some members and groups in the community.

During his visit, Everton saw the portion of the day that focuses on the 6-8 years olds. Two other groups use the space, and they are broken into 8-9 year olds and 9-12 year olds. This is different from other groups that we have visited, and the only reason the children are broken up is because the space cannot hold the entire group of kids together. It is a big group.

Attendance in this group is also voluntary, and Samantha also is a volunteer.

Everton saw that even though the children were so young, they were well-versed in Jamaican history and culture. The children talked about heroes like Marcus Garvey (whose birthday was celebrated last week), Bob Marley, Olympian Bolt. This is something that I see everywhere, the people young and old are proud of their country. Jamaican flags are everywhere, from cars to food labels. Green, yellow and black decorate this beautiful nation.

Nannyville Uprising Youths in Action offers services like speech, dance, theatre, academic skills, community events and food drives. It meets during the summer, and on the weekends.

Like the other groups we have visited, the children struggle with their math education. This is something quite pervasive in this country. Class sizes range from 40-50 children, and this has a seriously negative impact on the learning environment. On top of that, in the 1990s, teachers in the areas of math and science have been heavily recruited in the states, particularly in NYC and this brain drain has had a ripple effect in this generation of students.

This of course makes us want to return next summer with our team of teachers to train the teachers and facilitators, to share our experiences as alternative school teachers, and as educators in an urban environment.

Everton spent the latter part of his day with a youth who was recently accepted to UWI's medical program but he cannot attend because he cannot afford the tuition. This young man, Doneilo Thomas grew up in this program, and returns to work with the babies.

Doneilo's situation is another example of the nation's educational crisis. Not only do the children lack proper teaching in the lower grades, but tuition for higher education is too expensive. Unlike the states, the children do not have a free education here. It is a struggle in this economy for families to send their children to school. Parents pay for things like uniforms, textbooks, and utilities. Many of the students are not being properly taught. For the students who do excel, tuition at the colleges is too high.

In the evenings, we spend some time with the teens from Portmore and talk about the educational system. These are youths from a more middle class working neighborhood, and though they excel in schools and in their standards (exams), there are no scholarships available to them. Students who work hard to excel receive no support. What about the struggling students? By the way, there is no special educational system here to support struggling learners.

What happens to a generation that is not given the right to an education? How does this affect the crime rate? The unemployment rate? The murder rates? The nation?

People like Miss Samantha, Miss Cookie, Miss Pet, Youth Crime Watch in Jamaica are trying to (and from what I see, doing a great job at) help the community, one youngster at a time, one family at a time through educational empowerment and enterprise.