Just over the halfway mark into the fourth annual FOCUS Summer SLAM, the program's doors were opened to allow donors, students, family members and education officials to see students enrolled in the program in action during an All School Rally at The College of The Bahamas.
An initiative of the Lyford Cay Foundation, FOCUS is a tuition-free, school enrichment program that sets primary school students on an eight-year path to college and career success. Lessons take place during the school year and for 30 days in the summer.
This year, FOCUS is serving 152 students in grades five through eight who have been working together in small groups to complete projects that demonstrate this summer's information theme.
Students entering grades five and six with the new academic year were tasked with creating websites that communicate feasible waste management solutions for New Providence. Students entering grades seven and eight were charged with using geographic information systems (GIS) technology to map an efficient bus route system for FOCUS students.
Jasmine Roker, a sixth grade student at T.G. Glover Primary School, who has been in FOCUS for two years, said the program has helped her.
"FOCUS has helped me in school. The things I didn't know, FOCUS picked me up and helped me with them. And FOCUS teachers teach me different things," she said. "The best part about being in FOCUS is that I get to meet new people and also I get a boost to learning."
Students are recruited in fourth grade from public primary schools in New Providence's northwestern district (East Street through to Bain and Grants Town and up to Gambier Village). FOCUS' mission is that through additional educational support and enrichment activities, the students would be the first in their families to attend tertiary learning institutions.
Olivia Johnson, the mother of Amile Johnson, a fifth grade FOCUS student, has seen first-hand the program's accomplishments.
"For me, the best part is his mind is constantly going. He's constantly thinking; he's learning more, and I'm learning because he's talking about all the biomedical waste and all that. So whatever he's learning here, he's bringing it home and it's challenging him, because he's says to me, 'Oh, mommy I never knew about this,'" said Johnson.
All FOCUS programs take place at The College of The Bahamas' Oakes Field campus.

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