Jackie Gajadhar is one of nine students from St. Lucia at LC this fall. She is pursuing her bachelor's in special education, a subject dear to her because her 18-year-old daughter Zynel is mentally challenged.
"She's very dependent on me," Jackie said. "I couldn't function without knowing how she's doing." So when Jackie decided to leave St. Lucia to further her studies, she knew she had to bring Zynel with her. Her husband Irwin agreed to take care of their other two children, 16-year-old Jarvis and 15-year-old Tevin.
Lynchburg College has been wonderfully accommodating, Jackie said, providing her with its apartment on Langhorne Lane. Zynel catches the bus to E.C. Glass High School each morning, and when Jackie can't meet her in the afternoon, she has built-in help. "The St. Lucians here are really supportive. Whoever doesn't have a class looks after her for me," Jackie said.
Zynel has the mental ability of a 6- or 7-year-old, Jackie said. Despite a speech impediment and limited motor skills, she is doing well at Glass, and loves going to school. This is a huge relief to Jackie, who still finds it difficult to be so far from the rest of her family. She is grateful that she doesn't have to rely on mail to keep in touch. Her husband calls her every day, and with e-mail, she doesn't feel so far away. "That closeness is still there," she said. "You're not as detached from your family."
Jackie finds the local and the long-distance support crucial in an academic environment that's highly challenging. She said she often feels like she's in front of a machine that throws tennis balls and the machine is on high. "All the work is just coming at you," she said with a laugh.
Five years ago, Lynchburg College established a program to increase the education and training of special education teachers in St. Lucia, an island nation of about 166,000 in the Caribbean. Most of St. Lucia's special education teachers had two-year degrees, often with no training in special education. Thanks to the partnership with LC, that has changed.
"Back home we're not as advanced as America as far as special education," Jackie said, adding this training will make a huge difference. "We'll be the pioneers of special education when we're done."
Jackie said she hopes to convince her principal to allow her to work with the same special ed students all day instead of just working with a group for a short period of time each day. During visits to area schools, she got ideas about doing creative, interactive projects with the students.
Thanks to the mountains and trees, being in Lynchburg is not too different from home, Jackie said, except for the cold weather and the food. She misses the home-cooked meals she prepared every day in St. Lucia, which included peas, salad, rice, green bananas, ripe plantains, yam, breadfruit, and chicken, lamb, or pork.
But her daughter has the familiar "Dora the Explorer" and "Clifford" to watch on PBS and she loves Dr. Seuss. For both Jackie and Zynel, a trip to Dr. Ed Polloway's neighborhood for Halloween was a new cultural experience. It turned out that Zynel really enjoyed trick or treating.