Three teenage Caymanian students have spent the last few weeks volunteering in a unique programme that brings young people with disabilities to Cayman to learn how to dive.
Jason Ricketts, 16; Tareek Ricketts, 15; and Carol-Ann Campbell, 16, who all attended John Gray High School, were this year’s internship team with Stay-Focused, a charity founded by Roger Muller, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Each year, Caymanian interns are chosen to work and learn side-by-side with the young US visitors, gaining their PADI Scuba Diver certifications, which allows them to dive at a maximum depth of 40 feet under the supervision of a professional diver. They can also progress through to higher levels.
This year, Jason, who returned to the internship programme for a second consecutive year, gained his Open Water certificate, and hopes to go on to complete his Advanced Open Water and Dive Master qualifications. The charity has now offered him a paid position so he can return to work with it during future visits to Cayman.
He says he’s thinking about becoming a professional diver.
“It’s been so surreal for me. The past two years, just growing with the programme and earning respect as you go along,” he said.
‘Like a family’
Having been on the programme two summers in a row, Jason says he’s grown close with the kids taking part, as well as the adults involved. “It’s like a family, we have a bond,” he said.
“You’re doing challenges that you never thought you could have done. For these kids especially, with their disabilities, they are learning new things, some of them are travelling by themselves without their parents for the first time. It’s so good; I don’t have words to describe how great this programme is.”
In the Stay-Focused programme, the able-bodied students – the interns – and the visitors go through the same dive training, share the same meals, stay in the same hotels and have the same experiences.
For Jason, it’s been an eye-opening couple of summers.
“As you know, there is a lot of stigma still around disabled people here,” he said. “When on island, you really don’t see many disabled people around. It was so weird for me at the start to see people in wheelchairs acting all ‘normal’. But I’m super glad that I got the opportunity, and will get more opportunities for the future to really just help out and be as positive as I can,” he said.
He said he admires the way the visitors adapt to every situation they encounter. “We all as human beings have to adapt to certain things,” he said, as he urged others to have respect for anyone with disabilities. “Don’t think that they automatically need help,” he added.
First-time divers
For Tareek and Carol-Ann, this was their first time diving and their first time with Stay-Focused.
“Every moment I got to spend with these kids has been a great experience for me. Also getting to be in the water for the first time as a scuba diver was so good. I want to be a marine biologist, so doing this was taking a big step towards me becoming one,” said Carol-Ann, who was about to begin at the Cayman Islands Further Education Centre this week.
Whether diving with a missing limb, or with spinal injuries, or with no injuries at all, for new divers, that first moment of dropping underwater, and depending on unfamiliar equipment to breathe, can be daunting.
“When I got in the water that first time, I was so scared I’d run out of air or that something might happen,” Carol-Ann said. “But the instructors were there to help me out and keep me calm.”
That experience, she said, gave her a better understanding and ability to help the other divers who were having similar fears.
“Some of them were nervous at first, and I’d try to calm them down and say, ‘You can do this. Don’t give up,'” she said.
Jason added, “I feel like it’s tougher for them. Some of them have barely any use of their legs, so they can’t really use their legs and have to use their arms. Some of the skills they have to do require them to use both arms, but they’ve got a lot of upper-body strength and they’re great swimmers. They face challenges and they make the best out of it.”
Tareek agreed, saying, “Never think the kids with disabilities can’t do something. Never doubt them because they can do it. They can do a lot of things that we ourselves might never be able to do.”
He said the programme had not only given him the experience of scuba diving for the first time, but had enabled him to meet new people and build up his confidence.
He has had some experience interacting with people with disabilities, as his grandmother works at the Sunrise Adult Training Centre in West Bay.
“I’d go there from time to time to help because I love helping people out. It brings joy to my heart helping people to have a good time. So, me getting to do these types of things, and learning to scuba dive and meeting new people and having these experiences has been amazing,” he said.
He’s also hoping to keep up his scuba diving. “Just like Jason, I’m thinking about going on to Open Water and Advanced,” he added.
“Seeing the coral and the little fish and everything else down there was really cool,” he said.
“Also, bonding and making friends with everyone here” were among the highlights of his time in the programme.
Before joining the programme in 2022, Jason, who plans to attend the University College of the Cayman Islands this term, says he wasn’t into either swimming or snorkelling, “but I like to try new things, so when I heard diving, that sparked my interest”.
Sharing experiences
As well as diving with the visitors, the interns also share rooms with them at the hotels that offer the programme accommodation free of charge – The Ritz-Carlton, Marriott and Westin hotels. Dive operators Red Sail and Sunset House provide the diving instruction and equipment.
Each year, four Stay-Focused groups come to Cayman from the US for a week each – two are on a repeat or ‘reunion’ trip, and two new groups. Then, the following year, the new group goes on the reunion trip, reuniting with interns they worked with the previous year, so next year, Carol-Ann, Tareek and Jason will get to meet up with their dive buddies again.
The programme has grown over the years. When it first started, two decades ago, just two students a week were taking part, said Muller, who was back on island this summer, along with Ryan Chalmers, who started out as a teenage participant and who is now director of the programme, and his father Gregg Chalmers, who is chief operations officer.
Muller learned to dive here in 1999, and then returned the following year with his brother who uses a wheelchair. “The dive sites were right there, there’s very little current, and great visibility, and the water is consistently warm,” he said.
He added, “We love Cayman. In 20 years, we’ve never gone anywhere else,” noting the island offers everything the programme needs – generous donors and sponsors, warm weather, calm seas and easy diving.
“There is no place else where we would get the level of support that we get here,” he said.
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