SANDALS Resorts International, for the second year, hosted a group of 30 deaf and hard-of-hearing guests, this time at Sandals Whitehouse European Village and Spa.

The group, organised and accompanied by travel agent Kerstin Fox of Kerstin’s Deaf Travel, spent seven days on the island’s south coast enjoying the beautiful property and exploring various tour locations through Island Routes Caribbean Adventures. They visited YS falls in St Elizabeth, cruised along the coast to Pelican Bar, stopped by Dolphins Cove in Hanover and also visited and made contributions to the Maranatha School for the Deaf in Top Hill, St Elizabeth.

Having successfully hosted a 22-member group from the deaf and hard of hearing community in Negril in 2013, Sandals Resorts said it was again excited to welcome the visitors. The team, through the efforts of Sandals Foundation partners Global Deaf Connection and Junior Achievement, underwent sensitisation sessions to further enhance their communication skills and make preparations to offer the usual quality service to the deaf and hard-of-hearing travellers.

Deaf guest Cheryl Noschese expressed her love for Sandals Resorts and her hope to visit other properties within the chain.

“Sandals Whitehouse is a beautiful property; the food is good and it was a plus to see the effort team members put into trying to communicate with us. I am looking forward to visiting Sandals LaSource in Grenada next year,” she said. She also shared her love for Sandals Negril and the fun she had at the resort.

James Noschese, another member of the group, said, “The [Sandals] team members did a fantastic job and I am impressed with the way they tried to communicate in sign language; Sandals team members Nateana Barnes and Calt Lewis did outstanding jobs interpreting and providing information about Jamaica. This is a very good image for Sandals Whitehouse.”

Meanwhile, Junior Achievement’s Yanique Taylor, one of the session trainers, voiced her appreciation of the Sandals Foundation for the long-standing relationship with Junior Achievement. She also expressed her admiration of the team members and their interest in not only hosting members of the deaf community, but also providing training and career opportunities for deaf Jamaicans. “Sandals Foundation provides tremendous support by helping to fund our various programmes geared towards the deaf in schools, they have sponsored our JA Success Skills Programme, a work readiness focus initiative that prepares young people including the deaf for the workforce, which has been hugely successful,” she said.

Sandals Resorts has also hosted teachers catering to the deaf and other individuals living with deafness, for training and curriculum-development workshops. The Sandals Foundation had forged a two-year partnership with Global Deaf Connection, Junior Achievement Jamaica, United States Agency for International Development, and the Ministry of Education to improve access to education and employability of Jamaica’s hearing-impaired which now creates materials and offers training accessible to the hearing impaired.

The foundation also assisted in free audiological services to some 268 hearing-impaired residents in Antigua and Barbuda, where 169 of these individuals received hearing aids.

Sandals Resorts currently employs and trains deaf and hard-of-hearing team members, with Sandals Whitehouse employing four deaf team members and training nine deaf youngsters through its Hospitality Training Programme in 2014.