LOCAL old boys support groups are famous for strong competition among themselves in the sporting arena, but they are now seeking common ground to solve several structural issues current students face.

“Old boys of Jamaica’s all-boys schools [have] been very vocal and visible in their support for their school teams over the years. In fact, there is a direct correlation between the involvement of the old boys and the success of their school teams in sporting competitions and this has led many to believe that all the old boys’ do is support high school sports. This couldn’t be any further from the truth,” Major Basil Jarrett, president of the Jamaica College (JC) Old Boys Association told the Jamaica Observer.

“Old Boys support go much further than the trophies and sporting accolades at their respective alma maters. These organisations have long recognised that one cannot care about the welfare of their schools unless they also care about the welfare of the boys and have made welfare and academic support, a major priority. The old boys have also realised, however, that unity is strength and have set aside their sporting rivalries to collaborate on a number of initiatives aimed at improving their respective schools.”

This mutuality is in the form of mentorship programmes which springboarded from the development and pilot of the Big Brother Student Support Programme at JC earlier this year.

Under that programme, old boys help current boys to complete their education at JC, by either setting aside a monthly contribution to help a boy to attend school each day, or by making a contribution to a pool of funds set aside to cover monthly allowances in either or all of four categories: daily lunch, bus fare, school uniforms, books or any combination of the four.

Major Jarrett said: “An old boy living overseas called me one morning and wanted to make a monthly donation to a young man to cover his lunch and bus fares. We spoke for nearly an hour as the old boy recounted how he was only able to come to JC and receive a quality education, because a neighbour saw him struggling to come to school and decided to help with bus fare and lunch money. The old boy said he never forgot that act of kindness and swore to himself that one day he would return the favour.”

Following the conversation, Major Jarrett said he was challenged with finding a way to make it simple for other old boys, who were similarly motivated, to make that donation to the school.

“Their desire to help is always there,” Jarrett said, “but what was lacking was the mechanism and means to do so.”

Jarrett then lamented to a friend from the Kingston College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA) about the challenges he was having, and coming out of that discussion, an idea was born.

“We decided that in order to make it work, we needed to remove any and all impediments to that person dipping into his pocket and making the donation.”

What followed was an aggressive campaign to promote the programme to all old boys via social media, mass mail, direct phone calls, and WhatsApp messaging groups. The second phase of the programme, according to Jarrett, was to make it easy and unconscionable for anyone to say no.

“Not only did we not set a minimum donation, but we also created so many avenues that it was almost impossible for anyone to give the excuse that they don’t have it or they can’t get it to us. There was a GoFund Me and PayPal and CashApp account set up for the overseas old boys. We gave out our bank information for online direct transfers and in-bank deposits. We set up a collection point at the old boys’ office on campus. We even sent a bearer to an old boy if he couldn’t come in himself. We pretty much held you down and took your money”, Jarrett said in between chuckles.

This led to over 50 JC students identified as beneficiaries receiving support, but Jarrett was still unsatisfied.

“At JC, our vision is for an overall greater Jamaica and so we wanted to share our experience and knowledge with our brothers at the other old boys’ associations,” Jarrett said.

Subsequently, JC decided to collaborate with six other old boys’ associations — Kingston College, Calabar, St George’s College, Wolmer’s Boys’, Cornwall College, and Munro College — and provide a template from which they could model a similar programme. These programmes are currently being refined for roll out over the coming months.

“We saw the success at JC and listened to their account of how they were able to pull it off. Obviously, being situated in St Elizabeth meant we had to make some adjustments to the programme but based off JC’s learning curve, we were able to formulate and refine our own programme and launch it at our annual Old Boys, brunch last October. The programme is already a success,” said Captain Denver Ennis of the Munro Old Boys.

In addition, Dr Patrick Dallas, immediate past president of the KCOBA also endorses the initiative.

“Unity is truly strength and since we’ve taken a collaborative approach to certain aspects of our business, we’ve realised that not only are our challenges similar, but certain components of the solution lie with our brothers and rivals. KC may have a bit part of the solution but not the whole picture. As would JC and Wolmer’s and Calabar and Munro. When we sit with each other, however, those bit parts come together to form a bigger picture of how to solve our shared problems,” Dallas said.

Further, Deborah Walcott, dean of students affairs at JC, explained how the Big Brother Student Support Programme has helped students.

“Apart from food, the programme has paid for students doing CSEC and CAPE exams and also students benefited from text books. Separate from lunch, there are other things students are benefiting from. The beneficiaries are selected based on parents requests and observation from teachers and we offer the help there,” Walcott said.

She also lauded the programme and called on other schools to implement similar initiatives as student need is a major issue.

“The programme is welcomed as it assists our students. If this can be had in all schools that would be a good thing as a lot of students need the help and will not speak about it. There are parents too who are not too sure where to turn to get the help. If the information is there, why not use it? It has helped our students tremendously and I hope it will do the same for others,” Walcott said.