The St. John’s Educators’ Scholarship Fund is supporting two new students for the 2013/2014 school year, bringing the number currently receiving support to 10.
To date, 12 students have received assistance from the Fund, which commenced in 2008 by Cornice Modeste — a former teacher who presently resides in New York. She said that the initiative was to create to ensure that marginalised and vulnerable children will have financial support to enter and complete secondary education.
“What I wanted to do was created a scholarship in the name of former headmasters of primary schools in the parish of St John because of the great contribution they have made toward the educational development in the parish”, she said.
“These educators were the cornerstone of our community who served as Mentors, Fathers, Mothers, Brothers and Sisters; instilling great values in their students and provided them with the necessary tools to go on in life to become very successful, obtaining professions such as Doctors, Lawyers, Scientists, Chemists, Educators, Nurses and Entrepreneurs and so on, the list is endless without limitation to professions,” said Modeste.
“So I want the children to put all their effort into their education because they are benefiting from an initiative that is done to remember those who have contributed towards educational development,” Modeste told the students during a ceremony on Saturday where parents and children spoke about the wider beneath of the scholarship to the child and the home of the child before receiving the cheque for the new school year.
“This scholarship prevented me, I will say, from dropping out of school. It not only helps me but assists with my home,” said Jaime Chetram, who is one of the two students to graduate from the Fund this year having completed her secondary school education at Anglican High School, and is planning to attend T A Marryshow Community College.
The scholarship is funded by people from Grenada and other Caribbean Islands through fundraisers primarily organised by a committee in New York. Locally, the oversight committee is chaired by Ms Jeanette Dubois and students are recommended by principals and teachers of the primary schools. Once recommended, the student writes an essay saying why he or she should be selected. For 2013, students received $1,200, but in previous years students received EC$1,500.
