Helping Hands is Karl’s Hale’s” ‘baby’; now resident in Canada, Karl is a steadfast friend to the Gore Family Foundation (GFF) (via the tennis connection) and Jamaica, as he is directly involved with Volunteer Tourism too.
Through Helping Hands’ kind donation, GFF is the recipient of Cdn$15,000, to be used to fund the ‘Reach Up and Learn Programme’. Headed up by UWI’s Dr. Susan Chang-Lopez, it started in the 1980’s and is now web-based and properly funded. A lot of training is involved, but its low cost as the children’s toys are made from recyclables (including the small ‘Chubby’ plastic bottles!), to make rattles, dolls, push-alongs, puzzles and simple, fun toys, still beloved by kids everywhere.
In a nutshell, once a week for one hour, a qualified ‘trainer’ will visit with a group of the mothers of our children at the basic schools, advising on how to talk to, play, sing; how to do a puzzle, read, improve vocabulary and generally stimulate their children in the easiest, happiest way, whilst encouraging good nutrition at the same time.
Study results showed that after one group of children participated in ‘play’ only, one group played and received nutritious food, with one group not participating in either; it revealed that playing with the child plus good nutrition, did best on all evaluations. Even the group that just did ‘play’ without the food content, still did better than those who didn’t participate at all.
The children were monitored at ages 7, 11, 18, 22 and now at age 30. At the 22 year old stage, economists came on board to look at the various incomes. The children who were beneficiaries of early intervention earned 25% more on average.
Our Director became very interested in the programme, met with Dr. Chang-Lopez and quickly organised funding – thank you Helping Hands(!) – their donation will go directly towards GFF’s own ‘Reach Up and Learn’. As supervision is key, the designated trainer/helper will go over everything taught/learned with the mothers, monitor and evaluate throughout.
GFF is very excited as the actual implementation for our basic schools draws near.