Children First making a difference for over 700

Students in one of the classes run by Children First. - Carlington Wilmot

ZOE BARRETT is a self-confident young woman who attributes all that she is today to the help one organisation gave her family five years ago. She is one of several young people helped by Children First, a non-profit, non-governmental organisation devoted to creating a brighter world for underprivileged children in St. Catherine and its environs. Her story is not much different from the over 700 children being helped by Children First.

Children First, formerly a project of Save the Children Fund (UK) until four years ago, aims to reduce the level and impact of poverty as it affects children living on the street, illegally exploited, and at risk. The welfare-based system under the Fund gave way to a more developmental approach - partnership with the parents. They were sent to gain skills such as dressmaking, and encouraged to use these skills to help their families.

The staff consists of mostly young people who have been through the system and returned to help. Zoe, the reigning Miss Spanish Town Festival Queen, is the president of the organisation's environmental project. Vandrea Thompson, administrative manager, benefited from the programme. So too did Donovan Murphy, who recently graduated from Berkshire University with the President's Award. While there, he initiated a major school shoe collection drive and collected over 800 pairs of school shoes. The organisation now seeks help to get these shoes into the island and on to needy students.

Claudette Richardson-Pious, Executive Director of Children First, said that the organisation continues to experience a "funding crisis" which restricts the agency's ability to plan and develop their programmes and in turn limits their ability to assist the children.

The budget of $16 million has never been achieved. The organisation owes over $600,000 for statutory deductions and the staff has not been paid, some, for the past two years. "We are ambitious. We keep running without money. But the downfall is people see us still running and think that we have money," she said.

Special community projects are funded by the USAID, a major part of which goes to the Uplifting Adolescence Project, the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ), and the CEDA Enhancing Civil Society grant for work with the parents of the children. The skills training programme, formerly funded by UNICEF, is now defunct as there are no teachers for barbering, photography, and cosmetology, though the necessary equipment are now in place. Jambiz International, the promoters of Oliver's Posse, have done a lot to keep Children First open, she said. "All proceeds from the programme this year came to us. While on tour, I was able to beg money."

All the young people are educated on child rights, a major thrust of the project. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is used to guide approaches to work, especially in the area of child participation. The children have their own disciplinary committee and the two children on the board have equal voting power. Mrs. Richardson-Pious said this was a move towards total child participation. Adults are seen as the facilitators but the children run the programme.

The project takes a wholistic approach to education, total child development in literacy, numeracy and life skills. There is also a focus on environmental education and art and craft in the skills training programme and life skills. A thematic teaching system is employed and children choose the themes. Most of the children in the remedial programme are phased back into schools or vocational programmes after completion of three literacy levels.

Expansion hampered

Over 200 children are enrolled, but there is nowhere to put the 400 on the waiting list. The land in Spanish Town, owned by the JPSCo, was acquired through a third party lease through the Parish Council. Mrs. Richardson-Pious said to date they had only received a basic letter of agreement, and expansion of the programme was hampered because they are not on permanent land. The project has since lost out on a $500,000 relocation grant from the USAID because of this.

Children First is seen as an organisation making a positive difference in the lives of children, and is the largest NGO working with this population in Jamaica. In 1998, Children First received the Press Association of Jamaica award for most excellent contribution to community development and to street children in particular. It recently received the charity award from the Medical Association of Jamaica.

The organisation, which turned four years this June, has seen six young people complete their associate degrees, and several are now attending local and international universities. Mrs. Richardson-Pious feels that moving the children and their parents to a level where they see education as important is an achievement.

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