Beginning Now: Jones Town is the Beginning

It was hard to begin......and decide where to start, so i chose to start now.

Now, we approach the 8th weekend of our work in Jones Town.
Since Oct 1, 2005, we have been renting a classroom in the hardly used building of the Jones Town Agency for Change. For 2-3 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, 10 middle school students meet in preparation for the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics competition in San Jose, California, January 14, 2006

These students were selected from a group of 100 scholarship awardees that attended our Creations Lab programme in July 2005. (The scholarships were made possible by the kind generosity of the National Commercial Bank and Vickers One Corporation)


The challenge for this years FLL is Ocean's Odyssey and as a part of the project section, the students have to identify an activity that impacts on the health and biodiversity of our rivers, streams and oceans.

And wasn't that easy:



garbage dumped behind the building and into the gully, flows through the network, untreated and unchecked, into the world's 7th largest natural harbour, our been-loved Kingston Harbour.


So we began the process of educating and enlightening a group of young students about an issue that was not the number one nor in the top 10 biggest problems of their community.

After sharing a little apple




and being entertained by the not-yet-celebrated members of Jamaica's first gymnastic team at the Olympics






the group embarked on their first team-building activity






and realized the power of trust and collaboration



to put the pieces together.....and begin to solve the problem.