By: American International School of Kingston

What is GIN?
The Global Issues Network (GIN) Club community of individuals who are
passionate about tackling some of the world's most pressing issues, including
issues such as climate change, poverty, human rights and more.Through
regular meetings, events, and workshops, members of the GIN club get to
share their ideas, knowledge, and skills, and learn from one another. They also
get to connect with other like-minded individuals and organizations around
the world, creating a powerful network of change-makers.

About the Shady Grove Initiative:
Shady Grove is a Kindergarten school in Kingston. We chose to help
them as a school because we felt that we could not only improve their
learning environment but also their learning tools and communication skills.
There are many studies which have found that your learning environment
heavily impacts how you learn. So far we have collected donations of money
and school supplies at our school in both the mornings and evenings. We also
have popsicles sales every Friday after school and a portion of that goes to our
Shady Grove outreach.

The funds raised helped us complete many projects at the school. Our
GIN club members began with painting the inside of the kindergarten block
white to brighten up the room, we also repainted the sign outside of the
school to make it clearer. In addition to the painting we received window
donations and were able to replace the previous rusted grilled windows to big
modern window panes which allowed the children to feel more natural light.
Our art and student support kindergarten teachers at AISK offered their timeto train the Shady Grove kindergarten teachers in literacy building skills, art
and strategies for dealing with students who may require learning support.
The most recent activity we have accomplished is donating the school
supplies we collected for the children along with spending quality time with
the children in a lunch date.
 

About the Health Fair:
We partnered with Dr. Alfred Dawes from the Windsor Wellness Center
in Kingston, Jamaica to conduct health checks for hypertension, BMI, muscle
mass, diabetes, cholesterol, kidney and liver function. We provided these free
of cost to the grounds staff, maintenance staff and security at AISK. We were
also able to extend these check ups to teachers at a discounted price. Each
participant had a one on one consultation with Dr. Dawes regarding their
results and the next steps towards a healthier lifestyle. Our grounds staff,
maintenance staff, security and teachers do so much for us here at AISK, we
wanted to do something for them to show our appreciation. Keeping healthy
is so important and with Valentine’s Day coming up it inspired us to check for
heart health.