Sascha Wil­son

Los­ing her fa­ther, with whom she shared a close bond four years ago, was a hard blow for Makaya Hug­gins, but lean­ing on her faith, she per­se­vered.

Hug­gins won the Pres­i­dent’s Award af­ter ex­celling in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE).

Three oth­er schol­ar­ship awardees, Clau­dia Khan, Re­matie Bal­bis­son and Shaila Ramd­han, were al­so cel­e­brat­ed at their al­ma mater Holy Faith Con­vent, in Cou­va, yes­ter­day.

It’s the fourth time that the school has won the Pres­i­dent’s Medal.

While thank­ing her teach­ers, rel­a­tives, friends and col­leagues for their sup­port, Hug­gins said that with­out God her ac­com­plish­ments would not have been pos­si­ble.

“I was very con­fi­dent that I would have got­ten a schol­ar­ship but, how­ev­er, I was shocked I re­ceived the Pres­i­den­tial Medal. I am very hap­py for it.”

Ad­mit­ting that she faced sev­er­al tur­moil on her jour­ney to suc­cess, she said at the age of 12 her moth­er moved to Guyana, leav­ing her be­hind.

She lived with her fa­ther and they shared a close bond.

But, in Form Five, her life got flipped up­side down. “I would have been liv­ing alone with my dad at the time in 2019 and I was very close with him. He passed away very sud­den­ly from car­diac ar­rest and it was re­al­ly hard for me at the time,” she said.

She moved around un­til she fi­nal­ly set­tled at her aunt’s home, but she re­mained re­silient and nev­er lost fo­cus.

“I used it as a point of mo­ti­va­tion be­cause my dad is the one who en­cour­ages me to con­tin­ue pur­su­ing school. I could not even miss a day. So I kept that modus operan­di, mov­ing for­ward, that I would have con­tin­u­al­ly fo­cused on my school work at all times,” she said.

While she is cur­rent­ly purs­ing hu­man re­source man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, in St Au­gus­tine, she said with new op­por­tu­ni­ty she “will be seek­ing what God” wants for her and then she will de­cide what ca­reer path to pur­sue.

As for her ad­vice to fel­low stu­dents, she said, “sub­mit to God first and fore­most and fol­low af­ter His Teach­ing and all things will be made clear­er to you. “

Thank­ing God, her par­ents and teach­ers for their sup­port, Bal­bis­son who won an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in Lan­guage Stud­ies, said that Forms One to Three was “very stress­ful” for her.

Al­so shar­ing study and cop­ing tips to oth­er stu­dents, Balkissoon ad­vised that they try to fig­ure out the way they learn best and take ad­van­tage of all the re­sources avail­able to them.

Ramd­han, who se­cured an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in Mod­ern Stud­ies, said be­fore this week that at­tain­ing a schol­ar­ship seemed like a pipe dream.

“Though achieve­ments re­quire hard work, cher­ish the time with your class­mates. At­tend school events, no mat­ter how much you want a day off, make mem­o­ries, watch movies, read books and have fun. The road to suc­cess and plea­sure should not be mu­tu­al­ly ex­clu­sive,” she said.

Thank­ing her teach­ers and class­mates for shap­ing and guid­ing her, Khan said, “I want to thank God for an­swer­ing my prayers. I have been pray­ing for a schol­ar­ship since I was in Form Four.”

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly praised the school and the stu­dents for their achieve­ments.

“I want to thank the prin­ci­pal and the staff for cre­at­ing a school en­vi­ron­ment that fa­cil­i­ties ex­cel­lence. This is not the first Pres­i­dent Medal. These are not the first schol­ar­ship awardees,” the min­is­ter said. Gadsy-Dol­ly al­so un­der­scored the im­por­tance of par­ents in en­sur­ing their chil­dren’s suc­cess. A to­tal of 100 stu­dents re­ceived schol­ar­ships in 20 schools across the coun­try.