(bpTT) — Host­ed on a vir­tu­al plat­form, the mood was op­ti­mistic and ap­pre­cia­tive as en­er­gy stake­hold­er, bp Trinidad and To­ba­go of­fi­cial­ly marked the start of 2021/22 aca­d­e­m­ic year of their sig­na­ture Brighter Prospects schol­ar­ship pro­gramme on Sat­ur­day, 6 No­vem­ber.

This year the in­take of the schol­ar­ship pro­gramme was in­creased from 30 stu­dents in 2020 to 54 stu­dents, which in­cludes three post-grad­u­ate stu­dents. There are al­so 24 con­tin­u­ing stu­dents who are var­i­ous stages of their aca­d­e­m­ic pro­grammes.

Joel Primus, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and ad­vo­ca­cy ad­vi­sor, bpTT, con­grat­u­lat­ed the new in­take and guid­ed the en­tire co­hort in terms of bp’s new Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Frame, out­lin­ing how the com­pa­ny is pur­su­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty through three broad ar­eas: Get­ting to Net Ze­ro, Im­prov­ing Peo­ple’s Lives and Care for the Plan­et. He ze­roed in on their aim 12 of ‘just tran­si­tion’, which is fo­cused on build­ing stronger re­la­tion­ships with com­mu­ni­ties based on mu­tu­al trust and re­spect and through sup­port for ad­vanc­ing hu­man rights and ed­u­ca­tion.

“It’s great to see that the young peo­ple of Ma­yaro are lead­ing the na­tion in terms of un­lock­ing their full po­ten­tial and achiev­ing ex­cel­lence. We are proud to sup­port you in this jour­ney and with hun­dreds of grad­u­ates over 18 years, you all have a def­i­nite ad­van­tage. Our Brighter Prospects stu­dents pur­sue a di­verse range of aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits, have phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess rates and most of them gain em­ploy­ment with­in six months of grad­u­a­tion. I ex­pect that you will shine just as bright­ly and light the way for our fu­ture,” Primus ex­plained.

Open to res­i­dents of Ma­yaro and en­vi­rons, Brighter Prospects is one of BPTT’s flag­ship pro­grammes in its myr­i­ad so­cial in­vest­ment ini­tia­tives. Start­ed in 2003, the pro­gramme pro­vides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to stu­dents who gain ac­cess to ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion at ap­proved in­sti­tu­tions. Since in­cep­tion, the pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed more than 600 schol­ar­ships, pro­duc­ing more than 400 grad­u­ates. Be­yond the fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, the com­pa­ny pro­vides ad­di­tion­al sup­port such as aca­d­e­m­ic guid­ance and mo­ti­va­tion­al ses­sions. 

Shar­ing a few words of in­spi­ra­tion with the stu­dents were past grad­u­ates of the pro­gramme: med­ical doc­tor, Jarred Brew­ster and Mas­ter’s grad­u­ate, Tesi­la Ma­noe. Ma­noe was a Brighter Prospects schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent from A-Lev­els straight to her Mas­ter’s De­gree in In­ter­na­tion­al/Glob­al Stud­ies and she cur­rent­ly teach­es at the Rio Claro West Sec­ondary school and serves on the board of the All Ma­yaro Sports Foun­da­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­noe, “I want to tell you that I know how chal­leng­ing it can be to at­tain suc­cess in your stud­ies and some­times it can get over­whelm­ing. But nev­er give up hope and what­ev­er rea­son you have for ed­u­cat­ing your­self is a worth­while rea­son. This is how you will em­pow­er your­self, im­prove your qual­i­ty of life and lift up our com­mu­ni­ty. You al­ways need to re­mem­ber that be­ing part of Brighter Prospects means that you’ve nev­er alone – you have the com­mu­ni­ty and bpTT sup­port­ing you all the way. They made a sig­nif­i­cant and life-chang­ing in­vest­ment in my life and it will be the same for you.”

The bpTT schol­ar­ship pro­gramme has been en­hanced over the years to cov­er a wide range of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion stud­ies and this year stu­dents have ex­plored new ar­eas of study in­clud­ing En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Sus­tain­able Tech­nol­o­gy as well as Re­new­able En­er­gy Tech­nol­o­gy. In 2014, bpTT al­so start­ed an in­tern­ship pro­gramme that pro­vid­ed Brighter Prospects stu­dents with in­valu­able work ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion.

Speak­ing on the ex­cel­lence of the pro­gramme was Keishel Beck­les, who will com­plete her Mas­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme in De­cem­ber:

“Brighter Prospects has sup­port­ed me since A’ Lev­els and they re­al­ly have paved the way for all re­cip­i­ents to have a bet­ter fu­ture. I was even giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­tern at the Guay­may En­er­gy Al­liance Cred­it Union dur­ing my de­gree and af­ter­wards they of­fered me per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment here. My goal is to sup­port the ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­suits of oth­er stu­dents be­cause I know the im­pact that bpTT has had on my life.”

Beck­les ex­plained that she al­so vol­un­teers in terms of tu­tor­ing stu­dents as well as sports coach­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty. As part of en­rol­ment in Brighter Prospects, stu­dents are asked to ful­fil 30 hours of vol­un­teerism in projects that ben­e­fit so­ci­ety, whether it is in Ma­yaro or even on the oth­er is­lands where some pur­sue their stud­ies.

En­cour­aged by Primus, some of the con­tin­u­ing stu­dents gave some heart­felt and per­son­al rev­e­la­tions in terms of their mo­ti­va­tion for study­ing and the chal­lenges that they face.

Josh Clement is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a dou­ble ma­jor in Bi­ol­o­gy and En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence:

“I want­ed a bet­ter life for my com­mu­ni­ty, for my fam­i­ly and for my­self. That vi­sion dri­ves me every sin­gle day to pro­duce my best and over­come every chal­lenge. bpTT has helped make these dreams pos­si­ble and I know that they sup­port me all the way. We’re even on the same page in terms of their re­newed and ex­pand­ed fo­cus on car­ing for the plan­et and our fu­ture. I couldn’t ask for more.”

These tes­ti­mo­ni­als were es­pe­cial­ly poignant for Matthew Pierre, Com­mu­ni­ty Li­ai­son Co­or­di­na­tor at bpTT. Be­fore en­ter­ing the en­er­gy com­pa­ny, Pierre was an ad­vo­cate for the up­lift­ment of Ma­yaro and was part of a group of like-mind­ed res­i­dents who lob­bied bpTT to ex­pand their in­vest­ment in the com­mu­ni­ty; a move which re­sult­ed in keynote pro­grammes in­clud­ing Brighter Prospects.

“It’s hard to quan­ti­fy the ex­tent of the im­pact that Brighter Prospects has had on Ma­yaro and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. In its ini­tial year, on­ly three stu­dents ap­plied to the pro­gramme and now we have al­most 300 stu­dents ap­ply­ing an­nu­al­ly. I’ve been a part of this pro­gramme from in­cep­tion, and I can’t tell you the pride I feel when I in­ter­act with an en­tre­pre­neur, a teacher or a doc­tor in our com­mu­ni­ty who is a grad­u­ate of Brighter Prospects,” Pierre ef­fused.