RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As they shared their jour­ney to suc­cess, schol­ar­ship win­ners at the Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School broke down in tears yes­ter­day, as they re­called how they de­pend­ed on their teach­ers and each oth­er for moral sup­port dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Trapped in­side their homes with lit­tle phys­i­cal in­ter­ac­tion, the stu­dents formed on­line clubs and kept in touch vir­tu­al­ly as they stud­ied for the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE) with the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of their teach­ers.

Jilisse Roberts, who won a Mod­ern Stud­ies schol­ar­ship, paid trib­ute to her friend Mia Welch and her sis­ter, say­ing with­out their guid­ance and love she would not have made it.

Welch, who al­so won an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in Mod­ern Stud­ies, thanked Je­ho­vah God for help­ing her cope dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. 

Watch­ing her par­ents, she broke down in tears as she re­called how they mo­ti­vat­ed her to put God first and every­thing else af­ter.

An­oth­er schol­ar­ship win­ner, Son­ja Maraj, who won an Open Schol­ar­ship in Nat­ur­al Sci­ence, told her school­mates that her ac­com­plish­ment still felt sur­re­al.

She re­called that when she first set foot in the school, she dreamed of win­ning a schol­ar­ship and speak­ing on stage. 

Shar­ing ad­vice with her school­mates she said: “Nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate your­selves. I was guilty of this but be­liev­ing in your­self is half the jour­ney. If you ever feel over­whelmed, take a break and say a prayer.”

Like the oth­er schol­ar­ship win­ners, she said past pa­per prac­tice was the rea­son they suc­ceed­ed.

“Iden­ti­fy your weak­ness­es and work to­wards giv­ing it your best shot,” she said.

Mean­while, Ornil­la­mur­ti Ma­habir, who won an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in Cre­ative and Per­for­mance Stud­ies, said she kept in mind the need to stay fo­cused and not suc­cumb to pres­sure.

 “As my cousin says, pres­sure cuts di­a­monds. So take care of your­self and your men­tal health,” she added.

Son­ali Ma­haraj, who won an Ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in Nat­ur­al Sci­ence, said she and her friend had made a promise to win schol­ar­ships to­geth­er.

“Many times I pre­pared my­self for dis­ap­point­ment but I can tell you that be­ing here, hav­ing won a schol­ar­ship is the great­est feel­ing,” she added, as her class­mates ap­plaud­ed.

She de­scribed her teach­ers as friends who gave mo­ti­va­tion and sup­port about every as­pect of their lives. Say­ing their teach­ers were al­ways com­pas­sion­ate and thought­ful, Ma­haraj said this was the rea­son so many of them had suc­ceed­ed.

Prin­ci­pal Karen Bal­ly thanked the teach­ers for their love and sup­port say­ing the school was blessed to have teach­ers who went above and be­yond even af­ter reg­u­lar school hours, an­swer­ing emails, cor­rect­ing school work and of­fer­ing guid­ance to their stu­dents.