Since our inception we have known that for the majority of students, the focus must be on functional academics and independent living along with vocational skills. By the beginning of this year, we were satisfied that the academic portion of our curriculum was in place but that we needed to develop the independent living and work skills that are imperative for our students. We took a leap of faith that the funding would be found and hired a part-time agriculture/vocational teacher and three aides. With their addition to our staff, we are now able to address the individual skills that our students need, including communication skills, cooking, cleaning, sewing, gardening, beginning carpentry. The task of keeping funding in place is challenging but the children are thriving. Especially those who are non-academic are learning that they possess many other talents and their behaviors are changing accordingly. They are gaining the self-worth that comes from being productive - cooking lunches for their classmates, learning janitorial skills at the school and nearby offices, producing art products to sell, growing vegetables for the school and when they are ready, being placed as apprentices for some part of their school week in local businesses.

Our Special Horticulture & Agricultural Project

In partnership with Emerald Organics, a subsidiary of Bahama Palm Groves we are excited to announce a Special Project. A total of twelve acres of agricultural property leased to Emerald Organics has been made available for our students to learn how to propagate salable landscaping plants utilizing various techniques such as hydroponics, slip budding and air layering. Students will also learn how to propagate selected varieties from seed. The project will be broken down into sections; four acres will be laid out in local fruit trees such as sapodilly, avocado, sugar apple and mango. The students will tend the trees on a weekly basis introducing principles of small scale organic farming. An additional four acres will be utilized in the ongoing setup and growth of landscaping plants and the construction of a Quonset shadehouse. The final four acres will be utilized for the production of fresh produce and our goal is to begin sales of the fresh produce approximately four months following initiation of the project. We anticipate that at the end of the first six months students will be participating in the sale of the landscape plants to local nurseries and garden centres on Abaco and New Providence.