Jhada walks streets to help fund France dreams

For 18-year-old Jhada McKie, asking strangers for money was never something she imagined herself doing. But with her dream of becoming a French teacher hanging in the balance, the normally shy college student found herself walking through downtown Kingston, approaching strangers and asking for help to finance a mandatory three-month cultural immersion programme in France. Then two men turned their backs and walked away without saying a word. Embarrassed and crushed, McKie made her way to the next bus and broke down in tears. “I felt so embarrassed, ashamed and low. I think what hurt me was that they didn’t even have the decency to respond. They could have said, ‘We don’t have it right now,’ anything at all.” The encounter became the catalyst for an outpouring of support, with vendors at the bus park and strangers online rallying behind the Hanover student. But McKie’s biggest inspiration has been her mother, Marvella Brissett, a cleaner at Mount Peto Primary School in Hanover — the same school her daughter once attended. Brissett also collects plastic bottles around the school and takes them for recycling, using whatever she earns to help with McKie’s tuition. “Anything that she can do to provide financial assistance and make less of a burden on her, she does it,” McKie said. Her mother’s efforts have not always been met with kindness. “One day, she was over the school and somebody passed and asked her if a that she gone to now,” McKie recalled. “She got defensive and said, ‘My daughter must go to school.’” McKie is preparing to enter her third year at Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College in St James, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Education with a major in French. Her love for the language developed unexpectedly. “My Spanish teacher was the one who encouraged me to do French, Manning’s didn’t even offer French so I was asking her how I would even do that. I eventually started loving languages because I realised it was easy and it was fun.” After graduating from Manning’s School in 2024, McKie entered college intending to study Spanish and English. She later took on French, despite never having studied it in high school, and within a year earned a Grade One in CSEC French. “I fell in love with French. I found it so much more fascinating than Spanish, and then I switched my major to French.” But pursuing that passion has come with a steep financial burden. When McKie first told her mother she wanted to attend college, her mother was unemployed. “She was saying, ‘Where am I going to find the money?’ But I told her I wanted to go to college.” Her mother eventually found work as a cleaner and began supporting McKie’s education. The family has managed without a student loan. McKie had also been saving towards the overseas programme, but those funds were spent as the family recovered from Hurricane Melissa. The immersion programme is a requirement for students completing her degree. The trip, including travel and accommodation, is expected to cost about €8,000 (approximately $J1.5 million). McKie has already paid more than $800,000 in fees to the French institution and estimates that she will need more than another $400,000 to cover her Jamaican tuition while she is overseas. Determined to raise the money, she tried cake sales and fish fries before taking to the streets with a pan, asking strangers for donations. “I had to put fear and pride aside and just do what I had to do.” It was during one of those attempts that she encountered the two men who walked away. As she cried, another woman noticed her distress and encouraged her to continue. The stranger even accompanied McKie to several buses before leaving her to continue on her on. McKie later posted a video of the experience online. Within five hours, her GoFundMe campaign jumped from US$405 to more than US$5,000. “I feel like there’s still hope in humanity because sometimes it’s where you least expect to find the help that you need. I wanted to give up and people laughed at me when I told them I would start asking for donations. People tell me say it nuh look good but mi reach so far I can’t fail now.” For McKie, every sacrifice is worth it if it means giving her mother the life she deserves. “I always assure her that as soon as this is over, she will be the first one to reap the rewards of her sacrifices. I always tell her I’m going to buy her that restaurant because there is nobody in this world that can cook like my mother. I think everybody should get the opportunity to try her food.”

Persons wishing to assist Jhada McKie may donate to her GoFundMe at https://gofund.me/4d2d45e23