Nestled in the Diego Martin Valley at No 7 Cassia Drive, Petit Valley, is a small unpretentious building where five caring human beings, Zuleika Dhanny, Lillon Ryan, Alicia Mc Kenzie, Clinton St Rose and Phyllis Griffith, teach the learning disabled and slow-learning children from 8.30 a.m to 2.30 p.m week-days.
Everything, from the signs at the front of the building to the classrooms, are moderate in size. The signs displaying the Association for Developmental Education (ADE) and New Beginnings Educational Centre can easily be missed if you are not careful.
ADE, a non-profit, charitable, voluntary organisation interested in the needs of learning disabled and slow-learning children, was founded in 1978 by a group of interested persons who opened their first school at the old Bottlers Compound on Long Circular Road in 1989. "They were told they could have it indefinitely" says Zuleika Dhanny, co- ordinator of the Centre and Vice President of ADE " but not even two years had passed and the owner wanted back the building and immediately at that."
Dhanny, a Government Training College graduate and teacher at Matura Government School, the School for the Blind and Bishop Anstey Junior School, was in early retirement when she was asked by the ADE board to manage the school. It was a near miss experience which brought her out of retirement to what is obviously a labour of pure love. In trying to stop her car from rolling down the hill upon which she lives, one afternoon, sure that it would have hit a little girl who was walking up the hill, Dhanny was barely hurt. "I only had a lot of cuts although I had been thrown to the ground and a pastor who lived opposite told me God had spared my life as the car could have rolled on me. I felt God must have spared my life for something so I had better go back out to work. Later the same year I got the phone call asking me to come out and manage the school. Everybody left me holding the baby ten years ago and I am still here."
"Dr Gordon Draper got us this heavily vandalised government building at Cassia Drive, We had to borrow money from the bank and the Works Department fixed it so we could come down here." At the present time, there are just twenty-one youngsters ages five to 16 at the Centre. To make it viable Dhanny and her dedicated staff need to have thirty-six students at a fee of just $700 per term. The Centre gives scholarships on its own and also asks firms for schols for those from disadvantaged homes and with single parents who cannot afford to pay.
Youngsters come from as far as Morvant to the Petit Valley school with its well-kept playground complete with swings and slides, to be patiently taught in remedial education classes limited to twelve per class. "That is our limit to encourage greater teacher/child relationship. It is impossible to teach more than 12 learning- challenged children in a class. Remember they are all at varying levels and there must be homogeneous grouping according to their ability. We find out what their capabilities are so that we can get some of them back into the mainstream, especially at Common Entrance time we always send back a child the year before to do the C.E. after preparing the child" explains Ryan, who with another teacher fulfils the role of secretary cum teacher.
If the child is unable to go back into the normal school system, he/she will go to Servol or to learn a skill. "Some really blossom amd show ability and go on to learn typing and other school subjects. We have a past student who has her own little manicuring shop. They do make their name afterwards" says Dhanny.
The Centre also caters for adults on Saturdays. Currently there is a need for those who want to attend classes to call 633-0112 and suggest whatever courses they would like to learn and why. "They are not only taught to become literate so that they can read their Bibles and the newspaper, but learn to do things like fill deposit slips for the bank and immigration forms so that they become functionally literate as well" explains the co-ordinator who would like to start teaching home economics "so they will learn how to utilise whatever they have around to prepare nutritious meals. We have many other plans on the drawing board, mainly because my teachers are very committed, they will take their stipends and spend it on the children, paint the school, buy books for the school, even buy gym shoes for a child." Proudly displayed in Dhanny's office are trophies won by the school at the 1997 Regional Council Area Sports Day, and the Powergen Special Education Sports Day in 1999.
Zuleika's dream is for expansion, not only to the present building "so that we can have more children but to open branches in the east even as far as south. We need buildings and are open to any offers at all."