Janine's St. Vincent Mission Trip

Hey Everyone! As many of you know, I am currently in school fulltime pursuing my Occupational Therapy Doctorate degree. As part of my doctoral research, I am assessing the need for school-based services in order to implement occupational therapy in the School for Children with Special Needs in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 

During my trip to St. Vincent in November 2017, I had the opportunity to meet with the school principal, introduce myself to the teachers, and tour the school. Also during this visit, I got a chance to get the "real" picture of the school. Sadly, as with many other countries, especially in the Caribbean, poor attitudes and a lack of advocacy and support for individuals with disabilities, have somewhat left this school and the children behind. It absolutely broke my heart to hear that the principal has to use her own money to buy toilet paper or paper towels because of the miniscule amount of funding received by the St. Vincent government. She buys clothes for students, whose parents fail to send in a change of clothes, for extracurricular activities or in case of accidents. She also supplements the costs for lunch for all the students whose parents do not send in the 50 cents EC a day (which is worth less than 19 cents in US currency) that it costs to keep the lunch program running in order to feed their own chidren.  

On the other hand, it warmed my heart to know that this school has this principal who cares as much as she does and who goes to great lengths to try to support the children in this school. Because of this, and out of gratitude to the principal and the teachers for opening their doors to me and participating in my doctoral research project, I am asking if you may kindly help me raise money to help provide some of the basic supplies this school needs.

I will be returning to the school in February 2018 to carry out my data collection and observations for my project. With your generous donations, I will hand deliver supplies for the school such as toilet paper, paper towels, soap, cleaning products, snacks, and use a portion of the funds to support their lunch program to ensure that every student has a full meal. The principal has not asked me for support and is completely unaware of this plan, so this will be a complete surprise to her and the school.  Thank you in advance for your support and consideration!