Kenicia Francis
The Adele School for special children completed a community outreach project over the weekend.
Teacher Kishere John explained that each class gets to choose what form of community outreach they would like to do.
Students from her class, aged 13 to 18, chose to clean the bus stop across from the school after witnessing people waiting there in unsanitary conditions.
“When we begin our school year, each class is asked to do a community outreach. Some of the classes would have probably gone out to the old folks’ home and given out toiletries. I remember one of the classes, they went to visit past students and they brought them some toiletries and brought them a hot meal,” she explained.
“This is something that we’re encouraging our students to do, to find ways of serving their community. Since the bus stop is right there and we usually see individuals using it, especially when it’s raining, we decided we’re going to clean it and it’s right beside our school.
“We went out, we scrubbed down the bus shed, cleaned the glass as clean as we could get it. We scrubbed the floor and we also cleaned around it and we planted a few flowers just to beautify it.
“What we will continue to do, we will go down, we will water the plants to make sure they’re looking good. Once a term, as the year continues, we will continue cleaning that bus stop since it’s so close to our school,” she said.
“When doing our gardening at the back, we would see individuals standing up there. And sometimes it’s so filthy because there’s cobwebs, there’s bush … so we decided to clean it. We were also planning to paint it, but we did not get all the supplies that we needed. As we go along and get resources, we may do more to beautify it, either painting it, or brushing it up a little bit.”
John told Observer the students had been “excited” to lend a hand.
“They changed their clothes at school, we walked down, cleaned and we came back up. Then they cleaned themselves and put back on their uniform,” she added.
