Jamaica’s lesson of hope amid the chaos
Elinor Goodman is moved by the Caribbean island’s determination to overcome the latest crimewave and give its youngsters a future
Ihave rarely felt a greater sense of wellbeing than when standing on top of a waterfall that plunges 200m into the Caribbean. I was at Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica, and the only way to stop being swept away by the torrent was to hold hands in a human chain, led by a guide who pulled and cajoled us over the rocks.
The day before I had spent an hour as a surrogate teaching assistant for a class of six-year-olds. They showed me their beautiful handwriting and we read Bob The Frog together as the tropical rain drummed on the corrugated iron roof. All the kids were immaculately turned out.
It was difficult to associate these joyous scenes with the gang violence around the tourist hotspot of Montego Bay that led to a state of emergency being declared last month. The Department of Foreign Affairs urges Irish tourists to exercise a ‘high degree of caution’.
The Jamaican tourist office insists the island is open for business, and so far bookings have held up.
I was staying at the Sandals Ochi Beach in Ochio Rios, around 100km from Montego Bay.
Inside the resort, you could easily be in a different country to Jamaica. The resort features every conceivable luxury, including 17 restaurants and even free scuba-diving. The only thing missing is currency because everything is paid for in advance.
Sandals is the largest operator of all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean, and has a commercial as well as a philanthropic interest in the future of these islands. It has its own foundation, funded partly by donations from guests, which has helped bankroll projects totalling $46 million.
The projects are focused on education and the environment, and guests are offered the opportunity to get involved themselves in some of them – hence my presence at the primary school.
In contrast to the normally very disciplined atmosphere in Jamaican classrooms, the pupils screamed with delight to see us, and were fascinated to hear more about the naughty English boy who had scribbled on the books I had brought with me.
Some people, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, have criticised ‘voluntourism’ – basically voluntary work on holiday – because it does more to make the volunteer feel good than help the community. But headmistress Althea Scott disagrees, partly because Sandals does so much else for the school, such as providing computers.
At another project we visited high up in the rainforest, Sandals manages
WE VISIT A PROJECT HIGH UP IN THE RAINFOREST – AN AGRICULTURAL ACADEMY
an agriculture academy for teenagers.
According to headmaster Sydney Henry, it is a lifeline. ‘Young Jamaican men are an endangered species if they don’t get a job but join a gang instead,’ he says.
These tours would have been unthinkable when all-inclusive resorts were first opened in the Caribbean. Back then tourists felt they were being adventurous enough merely by going somewhere like Jamaica. And having paid for everything up front, they were quite happy to enjoy all the facilities on offer.
But gradually they have become more adventurous, and the range CLEAN START: Children help collect rubbish from one of the local beaches of activities on offer, both within the resorts and outside as added extras, has increased exponentially.
Now the waterfall climb is just one of dozens of action-packed escorted trips for which you can pay extra.
Voluntourism is a response to another trend Sandals staff have identified. Millennials, they say, are increasingly environmentally and socially aware, and want to interact with locals and do something to help. At the moment there are half a dozen of these trips of varying degrees of popularity. About 11,000 guests have gone on the reading trips to school; rather less attractive has been the invitation to help clean up a beach.
Instead it’s the staff who usually take part in these, but in the interest of research I waded through a soup of polystyrene cups and hair extensions, much to the amusement of local children who used plastic sacks like kites before joining in.
We collected a small mountain of bags but in terms of the scale of the problem of waste disposal in Jamaica we didn’t make much impact. However, the Sandals Foundation is doing a lot to improve environmental education and marine management. For example, it is funding a project to limit the appalling destruction of coral reefs by predatory lionfish. After an $80 training session, tourists can go on a lionfish-hunting dive.
Voluntourism may be of limited appeal at the moment, but it is a sign of how big operators are having to adapt to the demands of 21st- century travellers, and demonstrate that the benefits of allinclusive resorts go beyond the thousands of people employed directly by them.