CAP Students

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Ms. Baucom is the founder of the Community Achievers Project (CAP), which seeks to elevate and motivate the minds of the youth of St. Kitts and Nevis through farm-based activities.

Prior to returning to St. Kitts from Trinidad on May 11th, I sent out an e-mail stating that I was canceling the CAP students' camp scheduled for that day. As I settled down in exhaustion, Sydney Berkeley informed me that the students had arrived. Surprised, I looked up and saw about 20 eager young people who were happy to be at the farm. Evidently, all of the volunteers received the message that camp had been cancelled, but somehow notice escaped the bus owner and the students.

My heart was overflowing as the students eagerly discussed their plans to start their own agro- processing businesses. They have plans for their futures.

The students communicated to me how they needed land to start their own farming production. So, I have to contact the Prime Minister to meet with them so that they can discuss their plans with him. They realize, of course, that they first have to prove themselves in this endeavor.

Students have already chosen their teammates (thank goodness for A Ganar), and they know what products they want to put on the supermarket shelves. We can build the needed factories on our land. When I informed them that we would be getting equipment and more training, they were completely sold!

In front of my own eyes, a transformation is taking shape. When we first started this project with Basseterre High School, these particular students could not be described as either willing or ‘eager beavers.' They were considered the outcasts, the unwanted, the ‘not-smart' students. And to prove that everybody was right, they did very little to improve at school.

It is incredible to witness the change. For example, a student who wouldn't show up for school at all and didn't obey his grandmother is now very excited about his future prospects -- even demonstrating leadership abilities. A young woman who gave very little attention to academic performance or school is now emerging as a natural leader, and has become one of the best agricultural students. We had some really emotionally damaged children who are becoming holistically whole.

Kudos to Mrs. Roberts, the principal at Basseterre High School, for allowing us to partner with them and to bring our skills and other partners to assist her. She has been very accommodating and has been a positive influence on the behavior of our students, and on the responsible attitude of the parents. The majority of the parents are concerned about their children who can't read, do math, or doesn't attend school, etc. However, many of these parents also can't read, do math, or have dropped out of school.

The fact that the majority of the 22 students are supportive of the program quite frankly astonishes me. I have personally dealt with children from the same areas for five years. I have started with primary school children, and have found the majority of mothers are not supportive of us. Perhaps because their child is now almost about to be cast out of school because of formal academic limitations, parents have become involved. The majority of our children come from poor urban areas, though we are located in the country.

CAP could not have progressed this far if the following stakeholders and agencies had not intervened and offered support.

- Honorable Sam Condor, Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Education, paved the way for the CAP to establish relations with the public schools, as well as facilitating the use of the communities centers.

- Linda Adams was Sam Condor's former Permanent Secretary for Social Development, Community and Gender Affairs. Sam personally escorted me to her office, and she took great care of CAP for a year before she retired.

- Heather Stewart believed in us and awarded CAP money from UNICEF to purchase agricultural tools and supplies to build a tent. We now want to teach our primary school students how to make souvenirs and jewelry using natural resources.

- Wendy Phipps found time in her busy schedule as Executive Director of the St. Kitts Chamber of Commerce to volunteer to help us with our reading program at Irish Town Primary School, which attracted more prominent members from society to volunteer for the school.

- Steve Clark, Director for Student Affairs and a Ph.D candidate in Education, devoted time to design a Reading Module along with two former Peace Corp volunteers, and he continues to train volunteers for CAP to teach youth to read.

- When we were slipping into a financial abyss Resident Ambassador Rong-Chuan Wu from the Republic of China - Taiwan, stepped outside of conventional protocol and partnered with CAP (a CBO) to offer us exposure, supplies and training. The exposure to agro-processing has led CAP into a whole new direction of making value-added products.

- The Cuban agronomist engineers came to our farm and taught us how to make organic pesticides using herbs and Neem, and we learned the benefits of companion planting.

- We could never have continued to feed our youth and provide transportation if Windsor University of Medicine had not contributed a stipend to CAP each month, and provided student volunteers for our after-school programmes.

- Despite all our best efforts, we still needed to instill values and to train our youth in life skills, and James Goggin, USAID Representative of the Eastern Caribbean, and Paul Teeple from Partners of the Americas have come to our rescue and selected CAP to participate in a pilot program, A Ganar, to teach employment skills to our youth to prepare them to become successful entrepreneurs, employers, and employees.

- CANARI (The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute) believed in us enough to choose CAP for a small grant, which led us to commercialize our Home Grown Pumpkin Soup and to attractively, but inexpensively, package it.

- Having equipment to seal the packages and blend the crops has brought pure delight to the students, and to us as well. Claus Eckelmann from FAO (The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) directed us to a small grant to purchase some of our own agro-processing equipment.

- James Goggin will also help us get some needed safety and sanitation facilities into place at our farm.

- James Rogers picks up the students from Basseterre High School and the ferry terminal every Tuesday, brings them to the farm and then back to town. We don't pay him a cent for his services, and without the transportation he provides we would not be able to work with as many students.

- We hope to be able to get a large piece of agricultural equipment to assist Sydney.

- Last, but not least, with CANARI we hope to bring a few of the students to Trinidad to receive further training.

We could not make this type of progress without generous contributions from many. We thank God for allowing us this opportunity to guide and direct our children away from trouble. Showing them how much others care about them is so rewarding.

We have met other stakeholders that we will be contacting to help us achieve our goals to holistically train our youth on our organic farm. We are now starting to reap some of the benefits of our labor and it is good, but we have only just begun.