Five benefit from Social Security scholarship programme
By Joyette Mills-Ward
Business Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Five of the nation’s youth were the recipients of high school scholarships from the St. Christopher & Nevis Social Security Board distributed Monday (Sept. 3) at the statutory body’s headquarters on the Bay Road.
The beneficiaries, Shequan Bolus, Evah Barzey, Nehemiah Lawrence, Tassim Carty and Javed Isaac are all Primary school graduates who enrolled in the Verchilds, Washington Archibald, Cayon, Sandy Point and Basseterre High Schools this past Monday for the start of the new school year.
The Director of Social Security, Sephlin Lawrence explained that the scholarships were given to students based on financial need and academic achievements. During the ceremony she admonished the awardees to ‘not be satisfied with mediocrity’, adding that each one had great potential and could achieve whatever they wanted as long as they believed in themselves.
“Succeeding in your pursuit of a good education requires commitment, demands hard work and discipline.
It requires that you set your goal and decide on your priorities. Defer worldly pleasures and monitor the use of your time as the
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Javed Isaac
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sacrifices you make now will pay dividends later. You are fortunate to be selected for one of our coveted scholarships, which will propel you to higher heights, but that is only if that is what you want for yourself.”
She encouraged the parents and guardians to help create the right opportunities and environment for successful learning for the scholarship awardees, and saying to the recipients, “Do not disappoint us or yourselves.”
Halva Hendrickson, Chairman of Social Security Board also gave remarks, expressing pleasure on behalf of the Board “to be awarding the Susanna Lee Scholarships again”. He said it marked part of the outreach programme of the entity in terms of giving back to the society.
“This is money which we believe is well-spent. It is a lot of money that we are ploughing back into the community because it acts as an impetus towards the growth and development of the people in the society and of course the people are who this fund is all about. The fund is about the people, the people of St. Kitts and Nevis.”
The Chairperson of the Scholarship Committee, Eslyn Swanston spoke to the recipients as well and asked them to make wise choices.
~~Adz:Left~~ “You are advised to set goals for yourself and to dream big. See yourself as our future lawyers, doctors, prime ministers, engineers; because you can become whatever you set your mind to. The sky is no longer the limit for you; there is actually no limit. Children, you are special, you can make it, you can do it, and that is why you were chosen.”
Swanston disclosed to SKNVibes.com that the scholarship committee expects no less than 70% pass rate from the children.
Phylicia Warner, the recently crowned Miss Saddle Fiesta 2008-2009 and the most outstanding high school graduate under the Susanna Lee Scholarship Programme, thanked the Social Security Board for giving her the opportunity when she graduated Primary school. She said that when she was chosen she had not yet realised her own potential but that Social Security saw it successfully passing 11 subjects and attaining 5 distinctions as well.
The Susanna Lee High School Scholarship Programme started 25 years ago and the first was actually given as a gift to commemorate the nations’ attainment of Independence in 1983.
