FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 10, 2026

Contact: Shellie-Ann Kerns, Yaadi Strong Foundation
400 N Ervay St, Unit 130812 Dallas TX 75313
contact@yaadistrong.org

KINGSTON, JAMAICA / DALLAS, TX — Recent incidents at St. Elizabeth Technical High School, Jamaica College, and Seaforth High School have forced renewed national attention onto the realities of violence affecting children and adolescents across Jamaica.

At STETHS, multiple fights led to classes being suspended and a formal report being prepared for the Ministry of Education. At Jamaica College, a viral assault video prompted an internal investigation, disciplinary proceedings, and police involvement. At Seaforth High School, a dispute that reportedly began on school grounds ended in the fatal stabbing of 13-year-old student Kland Doyle near the Morant Bay Transport Centre, after which three students were taken into custody.

These incidents differ in form and severity, but together they point to a deeper national emergency. They are not isolated signs of indiscipline. They are visible expressions of the strain, violence, grief, instability, and unmet emotional needs many young people are carrying into schools and public spaces every day.

Jamaica’s 2023 Violence Against Children and Youth Survey found that more than three out of four young people aged 13 to 24 have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime, while nearly one in four girls reported experiencing sexual violence during childhood. In 2024, the National Children’s Registry received 13,918 reports relating to 25,005 incidents involving abuse and other care and protection concerns.

These figures make clear that school violence cannot be understood apart from the wider environments children are being asked to navigate.

At STETHS, the school community is still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, which damaged the campus and disrupted student life. Recovery in such contexts is never only physical. When homes, routines, and support systems are destabilized, children often carry that disruption silently until it appears in ways adults are quick to punish but slow to understand.

This crisis is not children’s alone. You cannot ask parents to parent through unprocessed trauma. You cannot ask teachers to hold classrooms while they themselves are unheld. You cannot ask children to regulate emotions no adult has helped them name. Mental health and socio-emotional support must reach the adults raising, teaching, transporting, and standing beside our children — not only the children themselves.

Every interaction matters.

The bus on the way to school. The route taxi at the corner. The stalls and shops where children buy bag juice and candy. These are not background scenes. They are part of the social environment in which children are shaped.

Children are watching how adults treat each other and how adults treat them. In those everyday moments, they are learning whether this country feels safe, caring, and worth belonging to.

Yaadi Strong exists because intervention, accompaniment, advocacy, and community-based care are necessary. But no single organization can meet the scale of this need alone. Jamaica urgently requires more trauma-informed community support, stronger school partnerships, expanded mental health resources, and sustained investment in programs that reach young people — and the adults who care for them — before harm escalates into crisis.

Support is urgently needed in several areas:

• More volunteers to assist with youth outreach, mentorship, family support, and school-community engagement.
• More funding to expand counseling referrals, crisis response, community programming, and long-term follow-up for vulnerable children and families.
• Greater national commitment to treating child and family distress as a collective responsibility rather than a private failure or disciplinary inconvenience.

Children should not have to communicate pain only through conflict, withdrawal, or tragedy.

The recent incidents at STETHS, Jamaica College, and Seaforth High School must move the country beyond outrage and toward action. Jamaica’s children, and the adults who care for them, need safety, dignity, structure, and sustained care — and the organizations working on the front lines need the human and financial support necessary to provide it.

ABOUT YAADI STRONG FOUNDATION Yaadi Strong Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit co-founded by Shellie-Ann Kerns and Alicia Anderson, MSW/LICSW in the wake of Hurricane Melissa (October 2025). The Foundation provides culturally rooted psychosocial support to Jamaican communities — at home and across the diaspora — affected by the storm and the deeper conditions it exposed. Programs include school-based art therapy, relief coordination, public education campaigns, and virtual wellness support. The Foundation is grounded in a philosophy of solidarity rather than charity. Learn more at yaadistrong.org.