International foundation awards scholarship to local students

The Lynne Mitchell Foundation, based in Miramar, Florida, has awarded its second annual scholarships to Brianna Blair, Goldie Bourne and Ricardo Greaves formerly of Seaview Primary School in Southfield, St Elizabeth.

All three students earned a US$2,500 scholarship to attend their respective high schools.

The students were chosen for the award based on their excellent academic records and the leadership qualities they brought to light in their stellar scholarship essays. Each student will continue to earn the scholarship yearly in US$500 increments, provided they continue to demonstrate strong academic progress and extra-curricular leadership skills.

“We are so proud of their accomplishments,” said Marlene Gordon, president of the Lynne Mitchell Foundation, which was created to honour a Miramar resident of the same name. “We wish them continued success in their future endeavours.Our hope is that they will excel and use their talents to make a positive impact in the lives of others.”

Blair now attends St Elizabeth Technical High School, Bourne the Hampton High School for Girls and Greaves Munro College.

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International foundation awards scholarship to local students

Hug up education, Ferguson urges parents and scholarship winners

MINISTER of Health, Dr Fenton Ferguson has underlined the importance of education in nation- building, and urged parents to invest heavily in their children’s future.

Dr Ferguson, who is also member of Parliament for St Thomas East, told an audience at the West Rural St Andrew Education Awards held at the Country Style Restaurant in Stony Hill, St Andrew last Thursday night, that even as they get assistance from those who care for them, they should never shut the door on the hand that fed them.“I am fanatic about education,” Dr Ferguson said. “I say to parents, the best investment you can make in your children is education. It’s better than land, car, house, or even wigs. It is important that you continue to make the sacrifice to buy the books and continue to make this investment in education,” he told a full house.“Education is the key to liberation and we have been liberated, but we sometimes tend to forget where we are coming from. One of the greatest sins of mankind is ingratitude. When some get through, they forget mommy and forget daddy.“No matter how bright you are today, there is nothing in life like a good attitude. One of the lessons I learned as a practitioner is as long as you are compassionate, you will make it,” the minister said.Dr Ferguson said that even before he became an MP, he had a scholarship programme in place, realising the importance of educating the people.He praised the work of member of Parliament for the area, Paul Buchanan, describing him as having a sense of mission.He urged scholarship recipients to demonstrate good core values, be honest, show dedication and respect to everyone.“Do not take the education assistance for granted. Education is preparation for eating. There is no job for life anymore. There was a time when long service awards were 35 and 40 years. Now, long service awards come after five years.“So prepare yourself, become multi-skilled, because when you are well-qualified, people want you. You also need to be competitive, because for every one that gets through, 99 do not get through,” he said.Dr Ferguson, who piloted and implemented a recent move to ban smoking in public places, also underlined the importance of young people staying away from tobacco use.“It is the young people who tobacco always entices. Nicotine is one of the most dangerous substances affecting mankind. I am a pro-health crusader, because tobacco causes every type of cancer. If we cut down on smoking, you will see less heart attacks, less strokes and fewer other diseases.“It is my mandate to protect the health of Jamaica,” Dr Ferguson said.Buchanan, who allocated $3.8 million from his portion of the Constituency Development Fund to assist the education thrust, also underscored the need for continuous learning.“This evening is a watershed occasion for West Rural St Andrew. The only way forward to stability and growth for our country is through education,” he said, arguing that the awarding of scholarships and book grants were done in a non-partisan manner.“We love party politics too much in this country. It is time we put education at the forefront, instead of politics,” he stressed.Touting information technology as the way forward, Buchanan urged the gathering to embrace what he described as the progressive way forward.“The past is gone, we can’t wait any longer. The logistics hub is coming and we don’t have the skills in place. We must go on the software programme and next month we will be going into our IT programme, “Buchanan said.Project manager of the CDF Moveta Munroe also urged recipients to make the best use of opportunities available and grasp them so that “together we will build a better Jamaica”.Hundreds of students received scholarships and book grants to various tertiary institutions, including the University of the West Indies, the University of Technology and the MICO University College.Assistance was also given to students about to enter high schools.Member of Parliament for West Rural St Andrew Paul Buchanan addresses scholarship winners.A section of the audience follows the programme with keen interest.Top student at Padmore Primary Joshua Hyman does a cultural act. In background are Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson (left), MP Paul Buchanan, and Moveta Munroe, head of the Constituency Development Fund Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister.Board members, chairpersons of school boards, and principals pay close attention.Guest speaker Dr Fenton Ferguson (right) presents Oberlin High School vice principal, Khafre Israel with a financial commitment to the institution.Scholarship awardee and UWI medical student Delores Coombs of Mount Cheerful, King Weston, gives the vote of thanks. (PHOTOS: MICHAEL GORDON)

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Hug up education, Ferguson urges parents and scholarship winners

Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipients urged to use skills to build Ja

SIX Jamaicans who will be leaving the island for advanced studies in Europe have been urged to return and contribute their newfound knowledge and skills to the country’s development.

The appeal came from Education Minister Ronald Thwaites as he addressed a farewell function for awardees under the European Union’s (EU) Erasmus Mundus programme, held recently at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.“This programme opens the broader federalist character of Europe to each of you… the fear is that you will be beguiled by the European culture and not want to return, but truly, what we need is the breadth of vision and experience you will garner to add to the expertise and knowledge needed for the further growth and development of this country,” he said.The six scholarship awardees are Kadian Davis, who will be pursuing a doctorate in interactive cognitive environment (ICE) at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands; Allison Pearce, master of science (MSc) degree in ecohydrology at the University of Lodz in Poland; Shaneil Stewart, master of arts (MA) in Advanced Development in Social Work at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom (UK); Chantelle Ferron, MA in the learning and teaching of Spanish in multilingual contexts, at the Universidad de Deusto in Spain; Marshalee Jones, European master in social work with families and children, University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal; and Jason Holness, MSc in Global Political Studies, Malmo University in Sweden.The awards cover allowances, tuition, registration and insurance costs for the duration of study and take effect between August and September this year.This is the highest number of awardees under the EU’s scholarship programme since 2004 when it was expanded to include graduate students outside of Europe.Davis, who is an accomplished technology expert, is hoping to use the training to further build the local information communication technology (ICT) sector, which the Government is pushing as a critical growth area.Her three-year course will focus on research related to computer science, electronic and telecommunication engineering and industrial design.It aims at developing and enhancing knowledge and skills in order to shape a new generation of professionals able to exploit and enhance cutting-edge ICT technologies to design and implement, in multi-disciplinary work teams, innovative solutions in the ever more pervasive fields of application.“I chose this field because it facilitates multi-disciplinary designs involving users in the design process of software,” Davis tells JIS News.The tech whizz is the head of the IT Department at the University College of the Caribbean (UCC). She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of the West Indies (UWI).In addition to devising strategic plans for IT at UCC and designing programmes for the ICT curricula, she serves as a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the DiploFoundation. She has also received fellowships from global organisations, such as ICANN and the American Registry for Internet Numbers to pursue Internet governance courses.Aspects of her postgraduate thesis have been published in international journals and she has made presentations in India and in the United States.Davis has also offered recommendations to the changes in the Cyber Security Act and is currently the UCC representative to the Cyber Emergency Response Unit of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining.Prior to joining UCC in 2011, Davis worked as a teaching assistant for the Department of Computing at UWI for over four years.Before taking up her scholarship, Davis says she will be attending an Internet Governance Conference in early July in South Africa, being organised by ICANN, which will focus on security and crime on the Internet and other matters.“Jamaica has an important role to play and will benefit from this conference,” she says, adding that the knowledge gained is usually passed on to students and at local IT conferences.She urged Jamaicans to pursue IT courses, especially in cyber security and Internet governance.Spanish teacher Ferron, who will be pursuing a 23-month course in Spain, is grateful for the opportunity to sharpen her skills in the language she loves, and to contribute to the promotion of Spanish as a second language.She told JIS News that Spanish has been her passion since she was 10 years old.“I have been striving to be a great speaker of the language as well as sharing my knowledge of the language with others,” she said.Ferron holds a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish with a minor in international relations from UWI. In 2010, she completed a postgraduate diploma in modern language education with distinction. She has a diploma in methodologies for the teaching of Spanish as a second language from the Metropolitan University of Education Sciences in Chile.She also worked as a tutor in Colombia for a year as part of the collaborative programme between the UWI and the Colombian Government.A teacher at the Immaculate Conception High School, St Andrew, for some seven years, Ferron said that the institution has been using interactive teaching strategies and technology to get children to understand the language.“We also ensure that we provide a cultural context for everything, so during our lessons we always have to speak something from within a Spanish-speaking country to link it to the particular area that we are teaching,” she told JIS News.Noting the importance of learning a second language, Ferron says it allows persons to appreciate other cultures and to widen their horizons. She says it is important for Jamaicans to learn Spanish given the island’s proximity to other Spanish speaking countries.“It is a must as it relates to relationships, trading, and business. The Spanish language is going to be a factor for us as Jamaicans and therefore, it is important that we do learn it,” she emphasises.Head of the Delegation of the EU in Jamaica, Ambassador Paola Amadei, says there was no limit on the number of recipients who can be awarded each year under the Erasmus Mundus programme.She said that the six awardees this year, bring to 19 the total number of beneficiaries under the programme from Jamaica since 2004.“It is my hope that in the 2014 cycle there will be an even larger cohort of scholars from Jamaica and we hope, for our part at the delegation of the EU in Jamaica, to partner with stakeholders in education to bring greater awareness of the opportunities that exist through the Erasmus Mundus,” she said.The scholarship programme has the objective of assisting individual students, tertiary institutions and organisations active in the field of higher education.For students, it promotes accessibility to Europe’s top universities and helps improve the career prospects of students by enabling them to study at top-class institutions. The programme also helps to promote intercultural understanding.Scholarship awardees under the European Union’s (EU) Erasmus Mundus programme for 2013. They are (from left) Jason Holness, Marshalee Jones, Chanelle Ferron, Shaniel Stewart, Kadian Davis, and Allison Pearce.Kadian Davis, who will be pursuing a Doctorate in interactive cognitive environment at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, speaking at a conference at the University College of the Caribbean, where she heads the information technology department.

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Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipients urged to use skills to build Ja