Inner City Basic Services Project (ICBSP)

Jones Town Primary School Poster Competition 

There is no doubt that in addition to its aesthetic appeal, art expresses and evokes emotions but can it heal emotional trauma? Well, the students and teachers of the Jones Town Primary School are giving it a try. The school recently held a poster competition under the theme, “How Crime and Violence affects me?”, which gave students ages 6-12 the opportunity to demonstrate graphically the emotions associated with living in the volatile community.

Art therapists believe that the process of creating art is therapeutic as it allows the artist to discover his or her true feelings and it also triggers internal activity that contributes to emotional healing. The issue of discovering emotions is especially relevant for persons who have experienced traumatic events and are unwillingly to explore emotions associated with the unpleasant experience. The need to recognise emotions being experienced are particularly relevant to children who are usually less able to understand or verbalise what they feel. The children of the Jones Town Primary School, including winner of the 6-8 age category, Alecia Allen, fall into both groups.  

Alecia Allen cries tears of joy as she receives her prize trophy from Ms. Bernice van Bronkhorst, Urban Social Specialist for the Caribbean and Latin America Region at the World Bank

Little Alecia wept with joy as she collected her prize for her winning piece from Ms. Bernice van Bronkhorst, Urban Social Specialist for the Caribbean and Latin America Region at the World Bank. Her poster illustrated the mother and the younger sister of a man begging for his life to be spared as a gunman murdesr him. Violent horror stories were consistent in the art of Alecia’s schoolmates as the posters illustrated murders, sexual abuse, an entire community under siege by gunfire and the aftermath of children not being able to go to school when parents die. Art imitating life?

  Little Alecia Allen’s winning piece

In addition to being therapeutic for the children, the art also proved to be very informative for the Social Development staff of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund. Jones Town is one of twelve communities selected to benefit under the Inner City Basic Services Project being implemented by the JSIF. The poster competition served as a good point of reference for understanding some of the issues affecting the community’s children and was critical in the designing of relevant social inventions. 

 As for the children of Jones Town Primary, the drawing has not stopped. Under the guidance of their teachers, they continue healing the hidden scars of violence one brush stroke at a time.