IT has been two weeks since Hurricane Melissa ravaged the island, and the 64-year-old St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) is one of the Jamaica’s many educational institutions struggling to recover from its impact.

Despite the challenges, Principal Keith Wellington is confident that the school will rise again and be stronger than before.

The southern and western parts of the island were the hardest hit by the Category 5 hurricane, as winds and mass flooding destroyed homes, livelihoods, and infrastructure.

STETHS had its fair share, with classroom roofs blown away, damage to offices and dorms, as well as the destruction of perimeter walls and seating.

The school community and the people of Santa Cruz have since been doing their part to help in the restoration of STETHS.

However, it’s been a strenuous journey so far, particularly for Wellington.

“Physically, it’s a little bit taxing,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I’m used to working long hours but in the past, the long hours would have included a lot of driving and things that focus on academics and emotional and mental activities. Now it’s long hours and coupled with all of that, now you have physical exertion because there’s a lot to be done on the ground.

“But I’m thankful that I have people around me who keep me grounded and keep reminding me to take care of myself and do the things that are required to take care of me,” said Wellington.

Currently, there’s no definitive timeline on when the school will reopen, but it is something that Wellington sees as important to overcoming the trauma.

“As a leader, school leader, leader of the family, leader of the community, leader of various organisations — I have to think beyond what is immediately in front of me and so I have to think about what are the things that we need to do to get to the next level, to the next step, to the next day, the next month,” he said.

“So yes, we have thought about how do we resume some level of normalcy because it’s important in all of this irrespective of what is happening, that the aim is always to get back to some level of normalcy so that people can be in their comfort zone, their mental state can relax, because they are comfortable where they are,” added Wellington.

STETHS has always prided itself on academic excellence which has resulted in it being one of Jamaica’s top performing high schools.

However, for Wellington, that’s far from the main focus right now. He wants to ensure his students are mentally and emotionally stable after experiencing significant loss.

“The first thing that we need to do where students are concerned is not necessarily focus on the curriculum and the tests and exams that are used to measure academic achievements, but more so the part where we focus on students’ psychosocial well-being, ensure that they consider the value of life, the value of the things around them, being grateful, understanding and appreciating that there’s more to life than just physical accomplishments or physical attainment,” he said.

“So as soon as we resume, and even before we resume, right now our focus is on reaching out to these kids, making sure that they are physically and mentally okay, and then in terms of the next phase, once you’re able to get them in our physical space, to ensure that you provide them the opportunity and activities that will engage their mental preparedness, their mental strength, their focus, and not so much getting them back into school so that they can get back to the curriculum. Even the grades 11, 12 and 13 students who have exams at the end of June, we have to make sure that they are mentally prepared to do the work before you can throw the work at them,” added Wellington.

STETHS has received support from a wide range of stakeholders over the past few weeks, most recently Kingston College helped the school with essential items and clean-up.

Wellington, while grateful for what has been done so far, knows much more will be needed in the coming weeks.

“What we want to see happening is that we are able to reach our students, we are able to provide for them in terms of care packages and so on, while we go through the process of getting the plant physically ready to accommodate them,” he said.

“We obviously need those things to help the students to stay focused and to stay hopeful, to stay positive while they are at home. In order to get the plan ready, it requires a lot of cash — cash in terms of being able to source the various resources to do the reconstruction that we are hoping will come through the Government sources, through support from alumni, through support from corporate Jamaica, and just generally building to ensure that the process is ready.”

The road to full normalcy may be a long one for STETHS, but Wellington is heartened by the school’s fighting spirit which he believes will shine through in its recovery efforts.

“We are one of those high schools that from day one, the purpose of the school was to help young, underprivileged Jamaicans. We were not one of those schools that formed to ensure that the wealthy, middle-class and upper-class Jamaicans had an education. Our birth was in the time [when] the school was founded by the community of Santa Cruz and the idea was that the school was built to enable young people to learn a skill, to be educated to the point where they could do things for themselves, and that is the ethos that we have — our motto is work and integrity,” he said.

“We believe in integrity and we believe that whatever we want, we should work for it and we support each other as a family. The institution, I think, can be regarded as a big family and so I’m confident that wherever the resources are to come from, the stakeholders, the various stakeholders, are going to ensure that STETHS is built back and bigger and better.”

Wellington, a son of St Elizabeth’s soil, is also confident the breadbasket parish will bear fruit again.

“I think St Elizabeth is similar in nature to what STETHS is. We are a proud set of persons, we are hard-working, we have had issues in the past where we have had to fight back and we have done so successfully. This time, obviously, it’s much bigger than probably anything we have had to face in the past but I think that the resilience of the people will ensure that we bounce back,” said the veteran educator.

“The support that is required cannot be just local support, it has to be support that goes even beyond Government support,” Wellington added.

“It has to be those international NGOs who, for example, value the historic nature of a Black River or a Savanna-la-Mar, people who understand the value of the Cockpit Country or the maroons, and therefore feel as if they should invest in these entities having the opportunity to bounce back. So when I consider all of those situations, I am sure that there is going to be enough resources from the various sectors that can build back western Jamaica,” declared Wellington.

A classroom block at St Elizabeth Technical High School which was badly damaged by Hurricane Melissa. 

A section of St Elizabeth Technical High School’s damaged stadium roof.

WELLINGTON…right now our focus is on reaching out to these kids, making sure that they are physically and mentally okayx