Our Jamaica Inn Foundation works to support important Causes and Charities, one of our new projects is supporting a small school in the hills of St. Ann – called Steer Town Primary.
Through our relationship with Debate Mate International, we have decided to sponsor a school in order to become more active in the day to day debate mate project.
Debate Mate International and what it means to our School that we sponsor:
Debate Mate International is an organisation that was set up to offer a range of programs and competitions to participating schools which were designed by CEO Margaret McCabe, a former Lawyer. The program uses debating skills taught by “Mentors” through the Debate Mate Team to promote social mobility to students in schools in many countries and here in Jamaica. Taking on a school to personally oversea and monitor means that we as a Foundation can work closer with the students while they learn the skill of debating over the years, and will also enter into final yearly competitions with other schools. It is very amazing to see that past students have now become Mentors and have been helping us at our Foundation find and train our staff members who are interested in signing up to become a Mentor. The funds we collect through our Foundation from our guests is part of what we use to finance the transport costs, mentor-ship training and costs to and from the competitions for our students.
Training at the Hotel
Recently we were very happy to commence our Mentor Training Program with Debate Mate and had several staff members sign up for the initial training. The premise is that they will be part of the Group of Mentors who participates one on one with the children learning the debating skills at Steer Town. We are very happy to have some of our staff members become involved!
Training will continue on in the month of November and the debating classes will commence soon-after.We had ten team members sign up to be Mentors for Debate Mate and attended the first training session recently!
Steer Town students at a Graduation Ceremony.
We are happy to keep you updated on the efforts and will be posting stories and features on how the students are getting on here from time to time, so please keep checking back!
If you are interested in helping us support the students in the Debate Mate Program, please contact Jeanine at pr@jamaicainn.com.