Raising gentle men

By Jay Sullivan

Subjects: Boys, Alpha Boys' School (Kingston, Jamaica), Orphanages, Orphans, Social conditions, Institutional care, Teacher-student relationships

Description: For more than 100 years, a small band of nuns have run Alpha Boys School in Kingston, caring for the abandoned, abused and delinquent boys of Jamaica. From 1984-1986, they allowed the author to share their world. He was one of many people during those years who lived on the periphery of the boys' lives, trying to help, and trying to understand. He saw the relationships the boys built with each other, which kept them from being completely alone in the world. Whether from the inside or the out, they all lived at the orphanage edge.