Captivate Podcast: Angela Haye on Rebuilding Lives Through Love, Support, and Education | 011

wow. What a beautiful introduction. Thank you so very much. Deborah, I appreciate please forgive me. I'm under the weather a little bit, so my voice may be a little bit worse, but please bear with me. So I am back in Jamaica, and I've been back home for 20 years, actually, 24 years, come next move, and I was born here, as you, as you mentioned earlier, and I went away, did everything in the United States, and I'm back in Jamaica, and this is my home while I appreciate the United States, and I love the United States, it is my home also. But I felt that Jamaica was where my calling was, and that is why I'm back in Jamaica.

So you decided to spend this phase of your life back home, and there was a particular reason for that you found when you got here. Could you tell us a bit about the Hanover educational institute?

Yes, as I say, My Spirit, you know, led me back to Jamaica. When I came home, I saw the need for a second chance educational organization having two young children at the time, I got an opportunity to really assess the educational landscape here in Jamaica, not necessarily as a tourist, because normally I would come home and visit for two or three weeks, but I got a chance now to really see Jamaica, the real Jamaica, and I realized that there were some links that were missing. I went to school here in my earlier years. I knew how strict the system was. I knew how disciplined I had to be, but when I came home, I saw there was a breakdown, and if I may be honest with you, Deborah, that was my culture shock. Coming back to Jamaica, some of the students were in their uniforms late at nights. They weren't going home on time. That was unheard of in my time. I also realized being in the educational system. Now, because I was working for private school that my my eldest son attended, I realized that there was a need. There was a need for a second chance educational organization here in the western side of Jamaica. I am in western Hanover, and I realized that there was a need to have a school of this caliber here, primarily because we were facing a lot of issues with dropouts and slow learners and underachievers. We are in what you call the rural belt, deep rural belt of Jamaica. So you may and you can imagine, Deborah, there are not a lot of opportunities for the young youth, or what we call unattached youth, in this part of Jamaica, who do not use education as their tool to propel them to the next level.

Well, you and I have a special bond about Jamaica, because as a young child, my dad often took us to Jamaica, and we didn't just stay on the lovely beaches of the island and the sun. We actually went out and explored the countryside. And my dad was a physician, and he took us to every hospital and clinic with him so we could see how people lived in other countries. And, you know, things were, were quite, quite different. So you're telling me about girl belt, which is perhaps a narrower band than it was when I was a younger child, but it still exists, and this idea of share giving is what brings you and me together, and why we have so much to say to one another. So absolutely. Could you talk a bit about how your organization relates to caregiving work?

What an interesting question. Deborah, what an interesting. Question, because the type of institution that we operate here in Jamaica, and we have been doing this now for the past 21 years, going on 22 years, I must be honest with you, at first, I thought my mission would have been to take these young people off the streets, away with the word community, whip them into shape in terms of, you know, giving them additional academic training and put them through the door to go and find a job or go on to further Studies. That was my understanding. Little did I know that we were going to get students who were abused, we were going to get students who were sexually abused, emotionally abused, even students who financially could not afford to come to school and pay the small fee that we were charging. We end up, we ended up having to spend a lot of time giving a lot more than just academic education to our students. And let me give you an example. We literally had to stay in touch with our students. We have had students who wanted to commit suicide. We have had students who come to school and they cry on our shoulders. Teachers had to stop teaching to pay them some attention. It was a lot more, to be honest with you, it was a lot more than than we had bargained for, a lot more so I realized early on, and that's one of the reasons Deborah, why we became a non profit organization in Jamaica, because we realized students were not going to be able to pay for the type of services that we were offering, and we realized that we had to reach out to the wider community to help in providing us with the necessary resources to help these young people. We have had students who have been expelled from the government schools. We have had young men who had gotten themselves into trouble, in terms of, you know, hurting other young people, and through the court system they were placed in our organization. We have had young girls, unfortunately, who have gotten pregnant along the way. And how our system works here in Jamaica, once you become pregnant, you are detached from the normal school system, and you have to find other alternative in terms of finishing your education. So this is the kind of work that we do here in in Jamaica, in western in western Hanover, alright, caregiving, yes, let's talk about, even teachers, myself included, had to dip in our pockets to take money to give a child who could not get home from school. Reality, Deborah. Reality. Let's talk about we run a canteen courtesy of the Embassy of Japan because it gave us our first building. I'm sorry, correction, the second building was given to us by the Embassy of Japan. The first building was given to us by food for the poor, through a donor out of Georgia, and in that that's that building, or we got three classrooms, we got an office, bathroom facilities, and we had a kitchen. So what we had to do, because we realized that when we when food was around, we had higher attendance. So you had to link meals to education. We had to link meals to success. So we started to cook for them. And believe it or not, we were charging a small fee just to kind of replenish the kitchen, the kitchen each day we could meet that because most of the students could not purchase the food. So Karen, yes, it is. It takes a lot, and we give a lot. And let me say to the to the listeners as well, your viewers as well. We have to be particular, particularly careful in terms of the type of types of educators that we get into our system. They have to have the love, they have to have the commitment, and they have to be able to give the support to these students, because they are I don't, even though I don't like to say special they require special attention and special love.

You raise so many good points in talking about caregiving. Now most teachers know that children learn better if they have food in their stomachs. So that's and how each country or even each school or even each classroom is going to meet, that is often a dilemma. So you recognize and and you stepped up to provide for it. And it's too bad that in some places, governments can't. Recognize that this is a fundamental thing to raise the citizens you need. So educators often try to fill the gap there. Yes, it's extraordinary sharing that you do, but it probably shouldn't have to be part of your planning for a school, because it adds one more layer, at least of expense that you might not have anticipated when you started the project. I'm sure,

absolutely, Deborah, an additional level of expense that we never, ever thought about again. As I said, we thought it would have been, you know, you come in and we give you what you need academically, and you go to your next level, but we're getting another students who are wounded, emotionally, physically and so forth, and in order to reach them, we have to be able to provide that well, absence of the fact that We don't have a psychology or psychologist on staff, we have to try to do our best to give them that love and that support that they need, to help to balance them, to move them forward. And we have done fairly successful. We have been fairly successful over the 22 years. We have had students gone on to university after West Indies, the colleges, in terms of nursing teaching, we have had students in the police force. We have had students in the military. So clearly, whatever we are doing and have been doing is making a difference.

Absolutely, I think teachers often step into the breach when there's a need to be filled, whether they are psychologists or not, they have to be good listeners, and often that's critical to a person being able to enter adulthood with with some potential support behind them or not. And yes, the many difficulties that you describe are, unfortunately all too prevalent around the world, but adding poverty to it is is often the biggest deal breaker for being successful in any country. So I you know, I'm sure that your school and providing both the means to move forward economically by giving the education but also the support that comes from feeding someone breakfast. I know world kitchen has has that has its main purpose is to feed people so that they can learn and thrive. And so this is part of a very large movement, and each one, one arm of it, or one, you know, one branch of it. But if we don't do it, I really don't think about the consequences for this world.

Absolutely, absolutely, you know, the teachers myself, we joke about it, we ask ourselves, why are we really doing this type of work? Because we are qualified. We can move on and get regular mainstream jobs that will pay us. But I recognize Deborah coming back, and I think, as I said to you earlier, My Spirit led me back to this place, not Kingston, where, you know, it's a more corporate world, but back into the rural side of Jamaica, because there's a purpose for me. There's a purpose for me, and I believe that purpose has to be fulfilled in a day, even though, yes, it's a struggle. I will I will admit that it's a challenge, but at the same time, it's very fulfilling. And we get a lot out of giving back. I was once a young girl in the same community attending some of these same schools, I can identify and I can relate, and it gives me great pleasure that I was able to be afforded the opportunity to go to United States courtesy of my mother, and I was able to utilize what was given to me in the United States, and have the privilege of Returning to Jamaica and being able to impart that to some of the young people here, what we call the young, unattached youth, who really do need this. So not all of us can be in the corporate world. I don't believe that some of us must be at this level to help, to get, continue to help, so that we can continue to spin

I'm sure that makes you a kind of Uber caregiver, because you are the person gathering and recruiting other caregivers to do this work. So what is the most difficult part of finding or hiring? Well, hiring may not be the best word, because what I'm going to. Say is recruiting volunteers to help you?

Alright, Jamaica, we have, we have persons in Jamaica that have very big hearts. But here's the reality of it, Deborah, they too sometimes are struggling. So it cannot be totally altruistic. We still have to have, even if it is what you call a stipend, whether it's for transportation or whatever the case may be, we still have to find something to give them, because these are not prominent persons who have retired from, you know, big positions, and they have, you know, big savings and and that type of thing. They, too, are also struggling, but they have a big heart, and I've had a community of persons, to be honest with you, that have worked alongside with me on this project and continue to work alongside with me on this project. We have had teachers who take less pay. We have had our admin staff that takes less pay. We have had persons our, what we call our our ancillary staff, you know, the cokes and those persons who just take a stipend just to ensure that the children can get a hot meal. Sometimes they even take whatever little they have and they share it with the students to ensure that they can get to school the next day. And and Deborah, they're not afraid to tell you, because we have what we call an open door policy. We tell our students, talk to us, let us know what you're going through. We do not want you to be absent from the program. It will be counterproductive. We will help you to get to school, because we would like for you to be able to get the offering take up your offerings, so you can move forward with your future. So we have My door is always open, the Secretary's door is always open. All of the teachers, we have an open door policy, and that has worked for us over the years.

So I wanted to ask you, because this takes so much of a commitment of your heart, your resources and your time, there's another side of this kind of generosity that people exhibit. So how do you handle your own self care to make sure that it does not overwhelm you?

Another important question, I meditate. I take time to reflect. I take my rest days.

And I was a part of rotor International, which is another voluntary organization. I put that is how I give back in terms of my voluntary work, even though you could classify even Hanover Education Institute is going to operate as a voluntary organization as well. But I give back because I realized that when I the more I give to others is the stronger my own life becomes. It's kind of, it's, it's, it's kind of paradoxical, isn't it, the more I give is the more I get in return, and that helps to keep me balanced. It helps to make me happy. Um, I'm driven, I'm self motivated, and I love what I do. So I have had moments when I have my downtime, which I'm sure all all persons do, I just step back and I just take it easy, refresh my mind, go back, go back to into my into my psyche, into my vision, and ask myself, well, why am I doing what I'm doing? I always have to constantly put that at the forefront of my mind, and it has worked, and it is working. I have a great family. I have two wonderful sons. I have my mom, my husband. I have a very supportive and loving family that helps to to to balance me out as well. I have great friends, so it has worked, and it and I'm sure it will continue to work, but yes, I have to be careful not to get too inundated with sometimes the mundane, sometimes it's financial, sometimes it's we have had students who really do need more than we can offer, because we've had those two right? So we I have to be careful just to learn the landscape, learn the personality of each child that we get each year, we have a new cohort of students. I I am involved. I teach personally. Development, that is one of the tools that we use to help to balance our students. Now, personal development is basically soft skills. They are life skills. So we talk about a myriad of issues, a lot of what they would be facing. We talk about leadership initiative, you know, conflict resolution, you know, just basically how to take yourself, grooming, personal grooming and those type of things to help to balance them out. That also helps me. So I stay connected because I am getting older, but I'm not getting older because of my relationship with the young people. So I stay strong NSD firm. And most importantly, I absolutely love what I do.

That is such a beautiful, well rounded portrait of a giver. You know, they say that we get more from giving than from receiving, and I hear that so much in your story. And I recall my my first teaching experiences were actually in a one room schoolhouse in a much colder environment up in New England, and for me, it was the life altering experience of being able to give an experience of outside the mountains to a group of children who might never go much further away from their home than a mile, because in those days, people tended to stay near the farm. How's that exchange with children? I was a volunteer. Nobody was paying me to do it, but I learned to teach, and the students who are often the most challenging are the ones who give back most to you as a teacher, as I'm sure,

absolutely, absolutely experienced, and as you and as you're speaking about the mountains, that's what was one of that's one of our signature trips that we try to take each year. We take them to the Blue Mountains, which is a world away from their worlds, and no telephone, no electricity, no running water. Everything is in the natural state. Just about everything that we do as it relates to the offerings that we we give to the children is to pull them up, is to empower them. I'm living in a country where we are blessed to have sun, sea and sand, but with our children, it's more than just sun, sea and sand. We want them to learn about their customs and their culture and to know that there's a different world. Because living in the countryside, Deborah, they think that this is what life is. This is the world. So as much as possible, we try to expose them to a bigger world. When the Japanese came on board and gave us, we were granted almost 100,000 us to build our training center. We took them to the ambassador's residence to be a part of the handing over of the check. We want to open up their minds, let them see that there's a bigger word that people can trust you, because here again, I believe we were the only single entity, private entity, that was given that kind of money as normally the what they call the embassy work. They work with government, government to government agencies. We were not a government agency, and we were able to write a grant and manage that grant and build a training center. So I'm trying as best as as as I can, along with the teachers and and the other staff members to show them that if you walk the right way, work the right way, speak the right way, do the right things, you can get whatever you want. You can achieve whatever you want. It's just all about honesty. It's all about discipline. And we try to and not just talk to them in words, but we try to do things, do activities that will drive home those types of values that we teach them.

I'm so impressed by this because it gives people a picture that caregiving is a global necessity and a global phenomenon that something, it's something we cannot live without. We need to extend ourselves to each other. I also want to mention before we go, because we are coming close to the end of our time, that Angela has a program on Facebook called Let's Talk, where you can hear from her quite frequently, and I hope that you will consider joining her through her social media links, which will be posted in our show notes. And I'm going to give Angela the last couple of minutes to talk a bit about any project otherwise that she wants to mention, or those media links where you can find her. Angela.

is so extraordinary. And as I hear you talk about it, I think it was probably written in the stars that you should go to school to learn how to run this type of business and be able to connect with hotel managers and help bootstrap your own country. What an amazing mark of experience that you bring to this. Program, and I, I'm so delighted we had at least a small chance to talk today, and hope we'll do it again as things progress for you. And please remember, Angela is going to start a GoFundMe, so if you'll check in at Facebook and for less than that coffee every day, then we all have to get we could help a child to be fed and schooled and transported so that this person's life would be a different outcome than he or she might ever have expected before. So Angela, thank you so much for being with thank you so much. I

appreciate being with you today, and it was fantastic sharing our story from the island of Jamaica, and we're looking forward to further collaboration in the future. Thank you so very much. Deborah,

it's my pleasure, and everyone, please remember that this is that season where we talk a lot about share, giving, and it's really time that we all step up and do it. So choose your project, choose your person, and give some extra time.

And I will add to that, that once you adopt a child, you'll get that you will be getting the profile of that child. You'll get to interact with the child. And we have done so in the past with persons from Germany. So you know, we are used to that, and by the way, they are very excited to know that somebody believe in them too and is willing to give them an opportunity to continue, for them to continue on their journey. So

delightful. I thank you again, and I wish you a pleasant day and much success in continuing to build

that thank you so very much. So have a blessed afternoon, and thank you so much for having me in your program. Pleasure. Thank you.