That year, Joyce Mackenzie and John Ganley organized a late spring trip to Peterborough for the musical and charismatic Richard Ho Lung of Kingston and his charming group of young adult singers. John and I had been in Jamaica since 1975, in Kingston with our three little boys, renting a furnished townhouse and teaching on a Canadian aid program at a community college. We were learning to love Jamaica.

Father Ho Lung was a highly educated Jamaican Jesuit priest, who taught literature at the University of West Indies and worked tirelessly to show the middle classes of Jamaica and the politicians the dire situation of the poor in slum communities, in desperate orphanages, in old people's homes, and in violent neighborhoods. He preached at our church and gave us courage to visit these areas and to bring friends and a bit of succor. At this time, Canadian friends were visiting us: Mackenzies, Farquharsons and others. They too were touched by the situation we were seeing: Third World poverty and neglect. We could also sense there was a way to participate in some sort of solution or relief. Participation gave us hope and zest. We knew from knowing Peterborough, our home community, that there were many people... you'd now call them "global citizens"... who would come forward to help... if only they could see meet and understand. What a better way than to bring "Father Ho Lung and Friends" to Canada for concerts and have him tell audiences about Jamaica's poor, about the reality behind the tourist images, and about international exploitation. But also to introduce Canadians to conscientious and empowered Jamaicans who were at work on the problems.

The first visit of Ho Lung and friends in the spring of 1977 and each year thereafter for ten years was the time and place to ask for volunteers and donations. We played in schools, churches and community centres. We borrowed money for the expenses. Air Jamaica helped with some of the tickets. It was risky but exhilarating. So therefore we did not, providentially, start the organization with images of starving children, with feelings of guilt or hopelessness. We started with the richness of Jamaican culture, music and people. Then we moved to the predicaments of the Jamaican people and to showing Ontarians a way to help. We were multi-denominational and received support from individuals, service clubs, churches, groups of nuns, young people, and Jamaican-Canadians. Many, many citizens with education and travel in their background and a desire to have a global aspect to voluntary work came forward.

As early as 1984, we began to take youth on awareness trips and to give them firsthand experience and deepen their global analysis. They brought enthusiasm and energy to the enterprise that continues to this day...700 of them over the years. We wanted two other things: to access matching funds from the Canadian government (that started in 1983) and to stay honest, small, personal, responsive and yet sophisticated in our global analysis. The debt crisis loomed over Jamaica. It negatively affected "progress" but we were seeing immense progress among our sponsored youth, training programs, housing provisions and school support.

Our friends and colleagues in Jamaica such as Jim Webb (1986) found our analysis sound. We communicated to our supporters, about 800 in those days, with newsletters and presentations. I think we were able to handle conflict creatively: no scams, no scandals, no resignations. Friendship and solidarity among equals has been the key to the success of JSH. We diverged somewhat from the vision of Father Ho Lung in the late eighties. The start he gave us both north and south cannot be overestimated. We were determined to keep administration costs low and send most of the donations to Jamaica. A small office was set up on the third floor of our house and then later an office was acquired downtown and a part time executive director hired.

Each JSH Board seemed full of intelligent and committed people. We tried hard to set up a southern NGO, "Jamaica Self Help Partners," but that didn't take. Still the people who were our partners in projects among the poor continued to receive our assistance. We were a learning organization, punching way above our weight, attending meetings of coalitions of other NGOs, asserting to government the importance of spiritual considerations in full human development and modeling ways of "engaging the Canadian community".

In 1992, John received the Lewis Perinbam Prize in international development. Several letters in support of his nomination were received from grassroots Jamaican women.

Today in 2005 Jamaican Self Help is established in Peterborough, its principles intact, its effect on Canadians profound, and its record of assisting thousands of Jamaicans well-documented. We give thanks for all this, for so many colleagues who saw the vision too and did the slogging and the dancing as we went together.

It will go on, because it is good.

S-Corner Community: Celebrating Changes that are Real
By Angela Stultz, Executive Director
S-Corner Clinic & Community Development Centre is a community-based organization in inner-city Kingston, Jamaica. JSH has supported basic health programmes, youth activities, and other community development work through S-Corner since 1994.

The S-Corner organization started in 1991 as a one-day clinic, and then it took off! By 1993, the organization had established itself as a multifaceted organization; doing clinic, education and community outreach programmes. However, an onlooker looking at the community now would see that the community still displays visible signs of poverty and social ills that are characteristic to inner-city community: Youths on the corner, gang wars, unemployment and zinc fence. So what has changed? You want to see change. Let’s take a closer look at what the S-Corner and Jamaican Self Help organization has done to help community people access their basic human right to a dignified life, and to address the underlying causes of poverty that has existed for decades.

Numerous and measurable changes have happened, significant changes that motivate S-Corner and Jamaican Self Help to continue doing what they do. Come with us and let’s take a walk in the S-Corner lanes, in the community and see the real tangible difference. Come with us, let’s go through our clinic records, at our youth intervention programmes records, and our leadership training records.

Community Action, the Real Deal

• Immunization clinic taking place in people’s yard –all babies are immunized.
• Hundreds of toilets exist where there were none.
• Ninety percent of residents have piped water in yards
• Ongoing “Clean Lane competition”
• Over fifty community residents received leadership training.
• Income generation activities in every zone. Three (3) chicken projects and one (1) Block making project.
• Workshop on the corner with “Up Town facilitators” who are not afraid to come in the community.
• Movement of people throughout the community.

The Clinic: Healthier Life Style for one and for all

• No more hookworms in babies
• Our annual immunization record 853.
• Reproductive health clinic annual records - antenatal 167, Family Planning 577 patients.
• Elderly Wednesday clinic, 70 elderly people per week.
• Increased condom distribution.

Healthier life style for one and for all – all age, both genders.

Education: Youth at Risk

• Employment creation for an average of twenty youths per year.
• 20 family’s lives improve in a year.
• Fewer youth on the corner.
• New and improved Basic School with play area for the toddlers.

And so we celebrate!! We celebrate with JSH Canada who has been with us since 1994. The changes we made would not have happened without us creating a true partner relationship we have enjoyed.

We celebrate true partnership

• Ongoing interactive dialogue
• Embracing the similarities and respecting cultural differences
• Moral support
• Technical support
• Financial support

We celebrate with JSH, its 25th anniversary, its commitment to work with us and make changes.

One Love from S-Corner

"Solidarity, another word for…"
By Evelyn Jones

Evelyn Jones grew up in the Peterborough area. She participated on a JSH awareness trip as a high school student, and later volunteered with JSH as a trip leader and facilitator. Evelyn currently lives in Nova Scotia.

"Friday I spent at Riverton. It's the city dump with 50,000 people living in shacks with corrugated metal leaning as walls to obstruct the speculative eyes. We spent the day in furious activity to prepare for a grade two graduation ceremony to be held on Sunday. We prepared and wrapped small presents for each graduate. I fell in love with the kids. In our society there is a constant increasing amount of material possessions it takes to satisfy a child. But here any love shown seems to satisfy them." (July 16, 1990)

This journal entry was made when I had just turned 19 and was experiencing my ideas of international development first-hand during a Jamaican Self-Help (JSH) awareness trip to Kingston, Jamaica.

Together with a mixed group of 14 people - including high school students and adults, plus our leaders Rosemary and John Ganley - we spent three weeks learning about the politics, culture, the natural beauty, and the devastating poverty of Jamaica.

That trip taught me about myself, introduced me to the joys and sorrows of group living, strengthened my interest in global issues and fostered an appreciation for Jamaican music and cuisine. I was exposed to a new dimension of the world, while being introduced to a wide variety of people, places, and experiences that helped me to analysis the complexities of the new world I had entered into.

I was a participant with JSH in my late teens and had the great fortune to later lead trips myself. Over the years, I've led four trips taking high school students and University groups to Jamaica, and last year began taking trips to Guatemala with a similar organization, as well I have led facilitation sessions for groups going to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Colombia.

Over the years, there are experiences and memories that stick out for me. The first time I went to Riverton and saw people living in a city dump and making a home was a shock as much to my Canadian sensibilities as to my realization of people's incredible tenacity, resourcefulness and pride of survival. As a teen, I remember boisterous church services where everyone from children to grandparents sang out their joy at the top of their lungs - all the words sung from memory, without songbooks or hymnals, their grooving bodies a joy to observe, and the heat and energy in the room. And I remember the Jamaican kids, their mischievous wonder at Canadians while I shared as much wonder and curiousity about them.

As an adult, I appreciate the educational model that JSH uses for its trips. Trips that combine experiential education with social and economic analysis have a lasting impact on the people who participate in them. I've often daydreamed about taking certain world leaders on an extended exposure tour to see if it is possible not to be touched and transformed by the experience.

I have seen people’s perceptions change dramatically, first my own and later with the students’, as we are exposed to people working courageously for change in unbelievably challenging situations. Myths about poverty are dispelled and participants often revise their idea that charity is the only response. Instead participants begin to recognize their role in global poverty and subsequently, their own responsibility to bring about change.

My life has been affected as the trip with JSH led me to explore other opportunities. Three years after being in Jamaica, I spent a year in El Salvador and learned about the civil war and the repatriation and rebuilding of communities while working with women's groups. A few years after that, I worked as an accompanier and international witness for human rights groups in Colombia. In Canada, I operate a farm in Nova Scotia that works with low-income families who are trying to improve their circumstances, and I also get to work with newcomers to Canada, helping them to navigate Canadian culture and society.

The JSH trip encouraged me to think critically about the world and to decide to involve myself in solidarity with others trying to bring about social change. The exposure has led me to admire the resourcefulness, courage, and integrity of people around the world.

Over the years, I have been involved in the solidarity path that I initially took with JSH. That trip and the opportunity to later lead delegations have informed my view of the world and our place in it. The beauty and courage that Jamaicans and others have brought to my life stays with me, and I am ever grateful for the exposure, the experience and the catalyst that it became for my own journey.

Reflections-Joe Webster
I am a teacher. It’s not surprising, perhaps, that most people who volunteer for Jamaican Self Help – from its founders, to board members, to Awareness trip leaders, to committee members – are teachers. We have that almost viral need to teach – and to learn. And in the eight years I have been involved with JSH, I have witnessed much teaching and much learning. I think that this is the key to what the organization is about. Aside from the obvious aid it offers to its agencies in Jamaica, I think one of JSH most important attributes is its ability to create awareness among Canadians about the dire conditions in the developing world.

The beauty of watching – and helping – teenagers grow from adolescents to adults is immeasurable. As a teacher I know that some of the best learning, some of the best growing experiences happen outside of the classroom, away from the school. In the years that I have been involved in taking and sending kids to Jamaica, I have noted that the experience is perhaps the most profound that these young people have had. Indeed, I think the JSH experience may be the most profound experience they will ever have. I Have seen countless teenagers leave on their awareness trips only to return as adults with an insider’s understanding of what is going on in the world. – and what we can do to change it. They come back changed and charged with understanding, compassion and commitment.

Sadly I have only been able to participate in one Awareness trip. I hope that will change in the future. But from this side of the trip, I have been able to encourage participation, assist with the application process and act as liaison between JSH and my school, St. Peter’s Secondary in Peterborough. I have assisted our participants in the fundraising process, helped them – and their parents – with their questions, doubts and fears. It’s a big step for a seventeen or eighteen year old to embark on this voyage. They have many anxieties and I think I’ve been able to help them through. And when they return, I am always ready to help with their “re-entry” shock, their sometimes unbearable and always slow assimilation back into their comfortable lives.

My trip was in March 1999. It was, I believe, the largest group of students JSH has ever sent on an awareness trip – twenty-four. That’s a large group of students to take anywhere, much less to the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. Needless to say, I was slightly apprehensive about the adventure. That year, we stayed downtown, at St. George’s School. The building was beautiful – a classic Georgian Façade with a lush, tropical courtyard. The kids – and the adults – were impressed. It was only when we saw the gates closed and locked behind our vans that we realized perhaps we were in for something other than the standard March break Caribbean getaway. But it wasn’t until I saw the students return from their first day’s assignments that I saw how deeply affected they were – some in tears, some were silently stunned, some were excitedly relating what had happened. But all agreed – they were changed. By the time we headed back to Canada, all were ready to commit some part of their lives to social justice. All the talk they had heard as children, all the didacticism of church and school, was finally – and practically – real. They knew. They were first hand witnesses and participants in the real work of social justice. And they would carry that with them for the rest of their lives. This is true of all the students who participate in the Awareness trips. All come back with a new understanding of what it means to share this planet. Some have returned to Jamaica. Some have gone to Africa, to Asia, to the inner cities of Canada and the USA. All have been taught a valuable lesson, a lesson they continue to learn – and teach to others – forever. As a teacher, that makes me feel incredibly happy and fulfilled.

Thanks JSH. And Happy Silver Anniversary.