Fifty-four sec­ondary school stu­dents from Ma­yaro and neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties have re­ceived $1,000 in­cen­tives to as­sist in their Ad­vanced Lev­el stud­ies, cour­tesy of the bpTT Brighter Prospects Ad­vanced Lev­el Grant pro­gramme.

The stu­dents re­ceived cheques at a func­tion at the Ma­yaro Re­source Cen­tre on May 25.

Among them was top-per­form­ing Roy-Ann Nao­mi Mitchell of Cowen Hamil­ton Sec­ondary School, who re­ceived a lap­top for ob­tain­ing six dis­tinc­tions in her CESC O-Lev­el ex­am­i­na­tions.

"I am very hap­py to re­ceive the grant, since it will as­sist tremen­dous­ly with the high cost of books and trans­porta­tion," said Mitchell in a re­lease. "The lap­top is a re­al­ly won­der­ful gift. It will help me with my ref­er­ence work, which is very crit­i­cal at this lev­el."

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from bpTT, 2013 marks the ninth year of the an­nu­al A-Lev­el grant–part of the wider Brighter Prospects schol­ar­ship ini­tia­tive set up by bpTT–that is man­aged in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ma­yaro Past Pupils As­so­ci­a­tion (MP­PA).

The pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive of the grant is to as­sist stu­dents do­ing A-Lev­els with their ex­pens­es, in­clud­ing books and trans­port. Since its in­cep­tion, the pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to more than 300 stu­dents.

Matthew Pierre, com­mu­ni­ty li­ai­son of­fi­cer, bpTT, told re­cip­i­ents, par­ents, teach­ers and MP­PA of­fi­cials the com­pa­ny re­mained com­mit­ted to the pro­gramme.

"When bpTT start­ed this ini­tia­tive, we al­ways be­lieved it would be a long-term in­vest­ment in the over­all de­vel­op­ment of the youths of the wider Ma­yaro re­gion," Pierre said.

He ap­pealed to the stu­dents to make full use of the re­sources made avail­able to them, say­ing they had to cre­ate their own paths to suc­cess.

Keynote speak­er at the func­tion was Vik­ki Khadoo, se­nior jour­nal­ist with CN­MG TV and for­mer bpTT A-Lev­el grant re­cip­i­ent when she at­tend­ed St Stephen's Col­lege, Princes Town.

"You hold your fu­ture in your own hands," said Khadoo, of Mafek­ing, Ma­yaro. "If you demon­strate dis­ci­pline, per­se­ver­ance and have a sound ed­u­ca­tion, you can ac­com­plish ex­tra­or­di­nary things."

Khadoo praised the cor­po­rate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of bpTT in pro­vid­ing the in­cen­tive to A-Lev­el stu­dents.

MP­PA pres­i­dent Oliv­er Alexan­der lat­er thanked bpTT for part­ner­ing with the as­so­ci­a­tion to help the stu­dents to meet their ex­pens­es while im­prov­ing them­selves aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly.

"It goes down to bpTT's cred­it that they have been sup­port­ing us in this en­deav­our for the past nine years," he said. "Trans­porta­tion, es­pe­cial­ly, is a re­al chal­lenge for Ma­yaro stu­dents, and this grant goes a long way in eas­ing this prob­lem.

"Ex­tra tu­ition is an­oth­er area which en­tails a lot of ex­pense if stu­dents are to per­form at their best."

Akeila Fras­er, a for­mer Brighter Prospects re­cip­i­ent and MP­PA of­fi­cial, gave tes­ti­mo­ny of how she ben­e­fit­ed from the grant and was now gain­ful­ly em­ployed with state-owned Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion. She called on the stu­dents to "give back to your com­mu­ni­ty" af­ter grad­u­a­tion and when they were al­so em­ployed.

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