Hello All,
Wednesday we had a Christmas part at the JRF, and I sincerely wish you all could have been there. The kids put on several shows/songs and everyone got a plate of sweets, fried food and some vegetables and a glass of pop. Most of the parents came and almost everyone dressed up. The kids behaved excellently and the food was served and received in an orderly fashion. Seeing it all made me smile so much and it would have been amazing to have all of the donors that have made all of this possible see what we have built. The first Christmas the JRF was open, I owned a 600 pound pig that ate its children, even when it had other food in the trough. It was a huge ordeal to kill that pig and carry it out of the piece of land it was on and then spit it and roast it. We worked for around 30 hours and when the parents came it was the worst experience ever. People were taking five plates and hiding them in their purses, parents were literally stealing food off other people’s kids plates, and it was total chaos. The difference between that and what we just had cannot be overstated.
I, David, mostly just eat lunch and play with the kids and don’t participate in any training or teaching. I cannot properly express how impressed and happy I am with the classes and general vibe at the foundation. I was never a good teacher and had no idea what I was doing when it came to managing teachers, but Catherine managed to figure all of that out. The Waldorf training Catherine and the teachers have received has helped to solidify the culture, norms and expectations at the JRF. The task of creating a single curriculum for a single subject was difficult and something I never successfully did. To have created a curriculum for every level of student, in a variety of subjects, as well as a set of methods, expectations and overall culture that our teachers and students understand and adhere to is staggering. I deserve zero credit for this accomplishment, unless you think not meddling is worthy of credit. I have my uses, but the majority of the credit belongs with Catherine, who has busted her butt for little to no pay for seven years now and turned the foundation into something I am happy to send my own kids to.
As we have mentioned before, the children’s overall success in school has made a great leap since arriving in Jacmel. Our students are getting the hang of the educational system and progressively improving their French skills. The first year our students attended school here, less than half of them passed. Now, no less than 95% of the children are passing and even competing with the other students in their classes.
The fact that all of the parents are employed by Good Threads has brought a level of stability to our student list and attendance that we could not have dreamed of back in Esperanza, DR. Good Threads stitchers are not entitled to have their children in the JRF, however basically every parent of a child at the JRF has managed to get a Good Threads job and many local Good Threads stitchers have managed to get their children into the foundation. Catherine and the teachers had a parent meeting last week and literally every parent showed up or showed up the next day to talk with Catherine. When we tried that as we were starting, around 20% of the parents showed up and of those, half of those were just there to ask for money when we finished talking.
None of this progress would be possible without the donors of the JRF. Most of you have never seen first hand the lives we have impacted but I assure you that we have made massive progress towards accomplishing our goal ,of giving our children the chance to achieve success. Thank you all and have a great holiday season.
