The Tribune

“Education is the foundation of every society. It is freedom and power; it builds character and is the key to success in life. Personally, there is nothing more rewarding than supporting a cause that betters humanity.”

Basil Goulandris, Chair, Lyford Cay Foundation

During the back-to-back unprecedented national crises of Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic and international private sector, including non-profits, foundations, philanthropic individuals and volunteers, played a pivotal role to supply the material needs and offer hope to thousands of Bahamians and residents.

These crises highlighted the ongoing and often less publicised good works and generosity of many in our country, including Bahamians, foreign residents and others from overseas who contribute to the common good through financial and in-kind gifts, as well as through community service and volunteerism.

Over many decades, outstanding philanthropists, like the late Sir Durward Knowles, have donated financial resources and their spirit of compassion and goodwill to varied needs.

Sir Durward made significant contributions in the areas of physical and mental disability and sports. He continually invited more Bahamians, especially those with greater means, to give more in a structured manner to charities and non-profits.

He advocated for a greater culture of philanthropic giving, including making changes to the tax code to incentivize giving.

A number of notable businessmen, including Sir Franklyn Wilson and the late Vincent D’Aguilar, have given in various areas including, respectively, education and the visual arts.

Charitable cum philanthropic foundations and giving come in a variety of forms. Launched in 2007, the Tara Xavier Hepburn Foundation, dedicated to the memory of Tara Xavier and run by her parents, family and friends, has granted 45 three-year high school scholarships.

The Foundation has a weekly programme of mentoring, learning and nurturing for young people, ages eight to 18. At its heart is Livingston “Bones” Hepburn, with a long career in environmental health, who is also committed to the social health and a nurturing environment for young Bahamians.

Alongside him is Claire Hepburn, with distinguished careers as an educator and jurist, an active citizen who has contributed much to the common good, and who, along with her husband and others in the Foundation, are making a notable difference in the lives of young Bahamians.

The participants in the Foundation’s weekly programme have enjoyed field trips, guest speakers and something more powerful: the love and care of adults committed to their growth and the development into active and responsible citizens, knowledgeable of the country’s cultural and natural heritage.

Foundation

One of the best known and the largest foundations is the Lyford Cay Foundations. It is “a partnership of two distinct legal entities: Lyford Cay Foundation, Inc and the Canadian Lyford Cay Foundation, registered public charities in the United States and in Canada respectively”.

The Foundation is now headed by Executive Director, Dr Nicola Virgill Rolle. It has invested $50m in The Bahamas since 1969.

There are many benefactors to the two entities, including generous Bahamian and foreign residents, a number of whom have given sizeable amounts anonymously.

Approximately 3,000 Bahamians have benefitted from the scholarship programme, for which the foundation is best known. Approximately 250 non-profits have benefitted from its community grants, another area of giving.

A signature and innovative thrust, which may be less well known, is the FOCUS programme, “an out-of-school-time, tuition-free enrichment programme aimed at preparing public school students of demonstrated potential and need for college readiness and access”.

In many countries, private foundations are assisting the work of public school systems. In government-operated school systems such as in The Bahamas, there are quite a number of students who excel, and many good students have graduated from our public schools.

Still, such systems have many structural and internal challenges and deficits. But the greater deficit such schools often face are the home and family environments of its students, which does not negate the deficits which need to be addressed within the government-operated school system.

In the United States, the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, operate some of the best preparatory schools in the country. Over the decades the Jesuits sought to increase the number of minority and poorer children in their schools through scholarship and other programmes.

They often found that, despite their natural talent and abilities, many of these students required learning and other assistance to enable them to succeed in Jesuit preparatory schools and colleges.

Integrated

In response, the Cristo Rey schools were launched, an integrated educational experience combining classroom and workplace formation and learning.

“The Cristo Rey Network is the only network of high schools… that integrate four years of rigorous college preparatory academics with four years of professional work experience through the Corporate Work Study Programme.

“Comprised of 38 Catholic, career focused, college preparatory schools, the Cristo Rey Network delivers a powerful and innovative approach to education that equips students from families of limited economic means with the knowledge, character, and skills to achieve their aspirations.”

Through his own foundation, basketball superstar LeBron James launched the I PROMISE School (IPS) in the Akron, Ohio, public school system.

The school is designed for “those who are already falling behind and in danger of falling through the cracks ... [providing] wraparound supports that educate the whole person – with a focus on both academics and character building”.

The IPS days are longer, there is a specialty STEM programme, and there is intensive family engagement, which is critical to such programmes, and the lack of which is one of the reasons for failures in many school systems, including in The Bahamas.

Through its FOCUS programme, the Lyford Cay Foundation is engaged in a transformational effort to boost life and learning outcomes for a number of young Bahamians.

As noted in a recent press release from the Foundation:

“For more than ten years, Lyford Cay Foundations has been engaging young people in the public school system across New Providence through FOCUS, a dynamic eight-year academic enrichment programme that works to keep selected students on track to become the first in their families to attend college.

“By starting at a young age and ensuring that the family plays an integral part in their child’s involvement, the programme opens the child up to education enrichment and the opportunities for exposure that it offers.”

Fourth-graders have been recruited into FOCUS from Albury Sayle Primary, TG Glover Primary, Eva Hilton Primary, Gambier Primary, Woodcock Primary and Stephen Dillet Primary.

The Foundation funds instruction costs, teacher training, meals, supplies and transportation to and from their homes for face-to-face learning. Instructors include experienced teachers from government-operated and private schools. There are also guidance counsellors and career specialists.

Dr Virgill Rolle notes: “The Lyford Cay Foundations has done its best to help our FOCUS students address their unfinished learning from their regular school experiences.”

Prior to the pandemic, students met on the campus of the University of The Bahamas for 15 Saturdays during the school year and 30 days during the summer. Beginning last March, they met virtually.

Dr Virgill offered: “Another key component of the programme is self-efficacy – students believing in themselves despite harsh circumstances and truly believing that through hard work and determination they will graduate from high school and achieve a post-secondary education.”

Like similar programmes in other jurisdictions, FOCUS has extraordinary potential for transformational change and to offer hope for many Bahamian children.

By starting at a young age and ensuring the child’s family plays an integral part in their child’s involvement, the programme opens the child to educational enrichment and the opportunities through the exposure and guidance it offers.

The programme also has the potential to transform the worldview and mindset of the participants, their parents and their siblings.

By focusing on children from homes where no one in their immediate family has graduated from a post-secondary institution, the programme provides an opportunity that a child may not have otherwise enjoyed.

Programmes such as FOCUS, the TARA Project and others internationally, may offer lessons and best practices for government-operated schools and youth development initiatives.

The challenge for the Lyford Cay Foundation is how to expand the scale of its efforts. The opportunity and challenge for the Government of The Bahamas is how to adapt and to learn from such programmes.

The late and beloved Monsignor Preston Moss relished telling the story of when he was a young student at St Augustine’s College. A Benedictine monk chartered a DC-10 so that he and his classmates could fly for the first time.

Their journey? A flight over New Providence, which they saw for the first time from a new perspective. “Not only did I see Nassau differently. I also saw myself and my potential differently. I realised the world was bigger than I thought,” he enthused decades later. This is the fine work of FOCUS and the Tara Project.

The foundations of generosity and giving have many wellsprings. In 1884 former California Governor and railroad magnate Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, lost their son Leland Jr. to typhoid. He was their only child.

Consumed by grief but grateful for their son’s short life they agreed a memorial for him. The memorial was a university to which they deeded a considerable fortune including an 8,180-acre stock farm in Palo Alto, California.

The farm became the campus for a research university to be named the Leland Stanford Junior University. Today we know the institution as Stanford University, though it legally retains its original name.

Stanford’s endowment is now approximately $37.8bn. It has produced many noted graduates and 35 Nobel laureates. The grief transformed into generosity of the Stanfords is an extraordinary example of a sort of “paying it forward”.

Amid many socio-economic challenges, it is good and necessary to remember the many fine individuals and organizations that have built and continue to support the building blocks and foundations of transformation and hope – and innovation. Perhaps they may inspire more Bahamians to: “Go and do likewise!”