Eighty years ago, Audrey Layne Jeffers, founded the Coterie of Social Workers of Trinidad & Tobago, to feed the children. Today, because government has taken over school feeding, a shift is being made by the Port of Spain Coterie to feed the children's minds through its recently developed Homework Programme at 3 Longden Street in Port of Spain.
The Programme Co-ordinator, Maureen Ashby, a teacher for 37 years who retired in 2000 as principal of the Belmont Junior Secondary School, says the project started on October 15, 2001, "is supposed to be just a homework programme where the children can sit down in a safe, quiet , clean environment, because we have security, and university graduates, trained teachers and public servants, whose calibre is such that they can actually help with the homework and for free."
Last Tuesday morning, there were just two youngsters from Belmont Junior Secondary preparing their homework in time for the evening shift under the watchful eye of a retired secondary school teacher who was too shy to give her name. Why I couldn't imagine, as she was filling a very important role in the two young lives. Neither could I understand why a programme of this nature, being offered free of charge has only received a very poor response to the morning classes, because there are 20 plus students in the afternoons.
According to Ashby, an honours graduate in Spanish from the University of the West Indies who also holds the Diploma of Education and has taught at schools all over the country "we are dealing with the children from the junior secondary schools only, and at this time they are from Belmont Junior Sec. We intend to expand to Mucurapo next year. Each student must sit at his/her own desk and work on their own. We offer supervised help in subjects which include Spanish, English Literature, Social Studies, even Math."
Catering for no more than twenty youngsters from 9.30 to 11am of the afternoon shift and from 1-2.30pm for those from the morning shift, between the principal of the school and the Parent Teachers' Association letters are sent home informing the parent who must consent in writing. "At the present time, the Form Three's are being helped. They come in, settle down and do their work, we do not allow playing or idling as we are not encouraging them to lime, so some people have already dropped out" says Ashby. That is not to say if someone comes in off the street he or she will not be accommodated but in that case "walk with your parent and state your case" jokes Ashby.
"The main idea is to get them off the streets of Port of Spain in their off shift because this is what Dr Eric Williams intended when he started the Junior Secs. There were supposed to be Community Centres where children went in the off hours but this never came into being."
Ashby is full of praise for the Junior Sec youngsters who are "well behaved. There is nothing wrong with Junior Sec kids, they are beautiful as teachers soon find out. They need direction and are not really wayward. People who have worked at it, really like them. Even if we save one child from going the wrong way we do not mind as every drop in the ocean counts. I have a chat with them about behaviour and we keep close tabs on them and the teachers call and find out if they have problems, we are a very close knit group. There is somebody here to guide them along the way and they can tell us anything that is bothering them. In the near future, we will get people in to talk and lecture but right now we do it ourselves."
The co-ordinator ensures that her volunteers only work 1 1/2 hours per week so there are ten tutors - five for the mornings and five for the afternoons. Retired people, says Ashby "have a lot of energy still and also you have brought up your own children so you are fine for the programme, you have already experienced setting a child down to do homework. We still have morning space available but want to reiterate that we do not allow liming at all."