Participants and Parents-
We are so happy that you've decided to come to Treasure Beach with us! Our group will be tutoring and mentoring students at Sandy Banks Elementary School and a preschool in Treasure Beach. We teach a wide variety of topics, but a larger emphasis is placed on improving the kids' reading and math skills. A lot of the children are undereducated with respect to these topics, and they must become proficient in them in order to pass a standardized test to move up to the 5th grade. In addition, we will also be collecting donations prior to our trip for the Women's Center and the two schools. The students will be divided into different grades and schools and will work with these specific kids for the duration of our stay.
Our site is located in Treasure Beach, a small village in the parish of St. Elizabeth located along the southwest coastline of Jamaica. Treasure Beach lacks dependable work for most adults, so residents typically rely on the unstable profits of fishing, farming, and the upkeep of small shops to earn a living. Many experts consider the minimum wage for salaried workers (about $1 U.S. per hour) legalized poverty, and most adults don't even earn that much. Despite low wages, the education system in Treasure Beach is still fairly expensive. Because of this, most children don't have the opportunity to attend high school due to rising tuition costs; about $2000 to $2400 U.S. Families have to pay for transportation to and from the high school, the child's uniforms, shoes, books, school supplies, lab fees, lunches, snacks, and other items that might be required by the schools. Even though the reality of attending high school is a hard goal to reach, the children in Treasure Beach are very hard-working and eager to learn. If given the opportunity, the children are more than capable of doing well and succeeding.
Treasure Beach is a very welcoming and close-knit community. Our group will be working with the Treasure Beach Foundation, which is a non-profit organization providing "incentives, assistance, and scholarships to enable the students of Treasure Beach, Jamaica [to] become successful, self-sufficient members of society". The schools we will work with are very resource-poor, and many of the children come from households that cannot afford basic school supplies and school uniforms. This is why we bring donations.
We are so excited to get to know all of you over the next four months and beyond. Just as a heads up any information that we give you, whether it be emails, due dates of materials, or handouts, can
all be found on this website. We will post the links as we give you the handouts, update the email archive every week, and post calendar with dates of upcoming meetings and payment plans. In addition, there will be a
section for parents, including an ASB Treasure Beach "cheat sheet" containing flight information, details of the residences that we will be staying at, packing lists, and contact information for the site leaders.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to email us!
-Brooke and Jake
Any other information about the trip can be found at www.altbreak.org
Go to "Sites" and choose "Spring" on the left navigation bar. Our site information can be found under International Trips entitled Treasure Beach, Jamaica.
