Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2004, was a very special day in the lives of the children at the School of Hope. They celebrated Jamaica Day. The fact that accomplished Jamaicans in various branches of the arts were there to share in the festivities with them was merely the icing on the cake.
Big up Abijah, L'Antoinette Stines, Jean Rhone, Volier Johnson, Dahlia Harris, Glen Campbell, Teisha Duncan, Claudette Pious and Lenford Salmon representing Jambiz. The group presented the school with a cheque for $10,000 which I gather was not the first monetary donation they were making to the school from the proceeds of various productions. The whole cake, however, was the students themselves.
The location of the school is at once symbolic and
ironic. It is nicely tucked away in the salubrious Elletson Flats Valley. You have to be going there to end up there. It is not the kind of location you would "just happen to be in the area and decide to stop by".
HIDDEN
One could almost say it is hidden. Just like the way we treat people and issues we do not wish to face on a daily basis poor people, finding the way to give education more out of the national budget, to mainstream or not to mainstream 'the disabled' in the education system, to elevate or not activities that satisfy our collective soul but not the pockets of the IMF, the World Bank and everybody else we owe for the luxury of possessing cars that cannot fit on our roads. Almost like convincing ourselves that if we do not face these issues then they are not there.
SALUTING JAMAICA
The children of the School of Hope are very much there whether or not we see them and it is our loss if we don't. They are there glorious in all the things they are able to be, diminishing and overcoming their so-called disabilities. On Jamaica Day 2004, they saluted Jamaica in poetry, song and dance; they celebrated the African connection in drumming and stick dancing and they interacted with their guest presenters in various forms of call and response performances as if they had rehearsed with them for the occasion. Abijah was only able to get through the opening sequence of Revolution, the students did the rest. When they asked L'Antoinette to dance and she asked the drummers which rhythm they could play, they asked her which one she wanted.
FELL INTO PLACE
When the cast of Cum-Buck-Us was introduced, someone raised Eric Donaldson's Sweet Jamaica Is Now On The Move and, again the students did the rest. It was like that with just about every folk or patriotic song that formed part of the presentations, planned or impromptu. All of these activities required the acquisition and practising of skills such as teamwork, taking turns, obeying rules, acknowledging leadership and being a good follower. The attributes of memory and co-ordination seemed almost incidental, or maybe they fell naturally into place.
ACKNOWLEDGING HUMAN-NESS
Sound simple, eh? A way of being that facilitates a high level of productivity, or rather, makes excellence possible. A way of being that is grounded in the 'I Am', in simply acknowledging our human-ness, outside of, and perhaps separate from, the number of zeros that fill up our bank accounts, (for many of us is so-so zeros in truth); the I Am that is not dependent on the ABCs of Government that come after our names. The I Am that is at once foundation and purpose, inextricably linked to any gratification we experience at the opportunity for being allowed to occupy centre stage. It is too often what is lacking in Jamaica, Land We Love.
ACTED IN FAITH
Every single one of those students who performed recognised their need for others in order to carry out their tasks well. Every one of them recognised and fulfilled their responsibility to help and work with some one else. Every single one of them trusted and acted in faith that whoever was supposed to carry out any given task at any point in time would have been there so to do.
These are some of the cornerstones of good theatre, of course. They are lessons you learn whether you want to or not if you want to be part of that, and those persons who refuse to learn them very often find that they do not remain in the theatre for long. So the students of the School of Hope present another good case for more resources to be devoted to the arts in education as well as the arts as education and not just as extra-curricular activities or as something we dress up on an evening to go out and pass the time.
Perhaps a visit to the School of Hope would provide more of us with valuable insights into how to just be. It is the foundation of doing. More importantly, in the theatre space that is the wider Jamaica, more should be done to provide the students at the school and those they represent, with the kind of visibility from which we could all benefit. And one more thing, somebody seem to have taught those students to love themselves just because they are!
