SCA goes the distance for disabled student

Last week we ran a story on the proud history of St. Catherine’s Academy and the dedicated work of the Sisters of Mercy. In the course of putting that report together News 5’s Jose Sanchez noticed that the tradition of going the extra distance to provide quality education was still very much alive.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting

Talking to Karissa, it’s clear that she’s a bright student. But just looking at her face you would never realize that an accident several years ago has left this seventeen-year old girl paralyzed from the waist down.

Karissa Alamina, Student, SCA

“I was upstairs of my friend’s house and my granny lives in the yard besides them, and my brother was across there. So I tell my friend that I am going down to check on my brother. When I was walking across, coming down my friend’s step, the coconut tree that was in my grandmother’s yard just dropped. The last thing I remembered was that I heard was a cracking sound and looking up at the tree.”

“When I woke up again I think I was unconscious for five or ten minutes. They had to take the tree off my¼part of the trunk was on my foot or my back, I don’t remember.”

The injuries damaged her spinal cord and since then she has been confined to a wheel chair. But Karissa did not give up on life. After several months of therapy in Mexico, she returned home.

Karissa Alamina

“I just stayed at caye and I finished Standard Six there. After that I applied to Palotti, St. Catherine’s and we just would have seen what happened from there. What my mother always put in me to have faith and not to worry about “what if” and “what if it doesn’t work,” Just do it and do what you want and see what happens.”

She was accepted to St. Catherine’s Academy and has done well in school. Her decision to major in the sciences created a problem because the school did not have the facilities to transport Karissa and her electric wheel chair to the laboratories on the third floor. But SCA’s principal, Alice Castillo, had an unlikely dream about a school elevator.

Alice Castillo, Principal, SCA

“Right away Mr. Longsworth and I realized we have to get her up on the floors where the labs are and the computer lab, not just once a day. If she takes the three sciences that’s three times a day and computer, that’s another one. So we realize that something had to be done.”

“It cost us a lot of money that we didn’t have. We used some fund raising money. We have to fund raise every year, so we use some of that for that. I know that there were probably comments that this is all for one student, but one student is just as important as the other four hundred and sixty-five.”

And in her last two years at St. Catherine’s, Karissa has made adjustments to make her life ordinary. Every morning at 7:30 she leaves her grandmother’s home on Freetown Road and makes her way quickly to school on her electric wheel chair. When she gets there she quickly operates the elevator to get to class.

Karissa Alamina

“Well in the beginning, to close and open the doors was kind of difficult, so my friend used to go up with me and come down with me to operate it. But since I got this one (motor chair) this is heavier than the red one I used to have. So since I got this, I go in by myself and come up.”

Sabreenah Hasan, Student, SCA

“She manages well in the class. She can get her stuff easily. I think she’s okay, and with the elevator it makes it much more easier for her to get around. And when we have to go to the science lab¼ It’s very easy for her to get around in the lab, it’s very big. Whatever she needs, if she can’t get it she’ll ask any of us and we can give it to her right away.”

Melanie Haylock, Student, SCA

“She likes, I would say practically everybody she likes. She doesn’t have problems with anybody. Most people are afraid to talk to her because they don’t know about her condition and they are afraid that what they say will offend her and it’s not like that. She doesn’t put that in her way of life. That’s why I think I was attracted to her in that sense, she doesn’t make her handicap a big part of her life, as in, you know, stop her from doing the things that was basically why we became close after that.”

Her ambitions are far reaching so SCA is just one mile on life’s long and winding road.

Karissa Alamina

“Well I want to go to SJC sixth form. It might come up to the same problem again. I’m not too sure but I might have to take biology and they tell me how labs are upstairs. So they might have to start carrying me upstairs again, or something like that.”

Alice Castillo

“She graduates in June, so we’ll be very proud of her. We’ll have to arrange special ramps for the stage. We’ll have to begin to think about that already because we usually graduate out of SJC gym. So they have to come up to receive their diplomas, maybe I’ll have to go down to her. I don’t know yet what we will do, but it will be good if we can get a ramp to get her up.”

Though Karissa is preparing for exams and graduation, she has a few words of advice for students growing up with disabilities.

Karissa Alamina

“I think it stems from the parents first, to encourage their kids to go for what they want, because nothing is wrong with them. They’re normal and their brains are functioning, so they just have to get out. I know to go for school it might be kinda hard but you must be able to find someone to back the child into the class, like in primary school. Lots of schools have low steps, maybe two or three steps, so you can just put a ramp. There is some way, always a way to do something you know, you always have a solution. And right now SCA has the elevator already, maybe that’ll encourage other people to come.”

Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.

Karissa, who turns eighteen in March, wants to continue her studies to become a psychiatrist.