Stu­dents and staff at the Bish­op Anstey and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) yes­ter­day cel­e­brat­ed 20 stu­dents who re­ceived na­tion­al schol­ar­ships at their “Achieve­ment Day” prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the school in Trinci­ty.

The stu­dents se­cured nine open and 11 ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ships, 12 more than what the school achieved last year.

Speak­ing to the young schol­ars and award win­ners dur­ing yes­ter­day’s event, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and au­thor Ako­sua Dar­d­aine Ed­wards echoed the words giv­en to her by a woman in Ugan­da, who taught her that peo­ple are not de­fined by their achieve­ments or qual­i­fi­ca­tions. She told the stu­dents this ad­vice changed her life.

Ed­wards said af­ter she was fired from her lu­cra­tive job as a CFO and her hus­band left her, her life’s plans had all but fall­en apart be­fore her eyes. How­ev­er, she said she ran away to Ugan­da to use her fi­nan­cial know-how to as­sist a lit­tle vil­lage com­pris­ing main­ly women who had big as­pi­ra­tions of con­quer­ing the East African agri­cul­ture in­dus­try. At this vil­lage, she said she met with the pres­i­dent of the ini­tia­tive who helped put life in­to per­spec­tive for her.

“She hugged me and said, ‘Madam Ako­sua, all those fan­cy ti­tles and things you own says some­thing about you, but it can nev­er be who you are,’” Ed­wards re­called.

The Ugan­dan woman, who knew noth­ing about Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ed­wards said, was as­ton­ished by the lib­er­ties and free­doms this Caribbean coun­try pos­sessed, in­clud­ing the fact that T&T has nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced a war and the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem was ac­ces­si­ble to all for free. She said the woman urged her to re­turn to T&T and help out her “vil­lage,” say­ing, “Madam Ako­sua, you must go home and ho­n­our your­self and ho­n­our the peo­ple who al­lowed you to live in peace your en­tire life…go home madam Ako­sua to that place that al­lowed you a free ed­u­ca­tion…you need to go back home and fix it…you need to ho­n­our this place that has al­lowed you to live the life you have…give back.”

In a re­lease, the Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion, board of man­age­ment, di­rec­tor, se­nior man­age­ment and staff con­grat­u­lat­ed the 20 stu­dents of BATCE’s Sixth Form who earned schol­ar­ships in sev­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic ar­eas. “Win­ning a schol­ar­ship is a hap­py and proud mo­ment for not just the win­ner but al­so for fam­i­ly, friends, teach­ers and the school. Whether it is Arts, Busi­ness, ICT, Nat­ur­al Sci­ences or Math­e­mat­ics, achiev­ing a schol­ar­ship de­serves praise,” the re­lease said.

Schol­ar­ship win­ners

Ja­nine Veronique - Busi­ness Stud­ies, Open

Abi­gail Charles - Gen­er­al Stud­ies, Open

Isi­ah Fer­gu­son - Gen­er­al Stu dies, Open

Iyana Doyle - Gen­er­al Stud­ies, Open

Jer­rel Gor­don - ICT, Open

Tyrese Lake - ICT, Open

Jew­el Cok­er - ICT, Ad­di­tion­al

Kris­ten Thomas - ICT, Ad­di­tion­al

Nicholas Heer­alal - Math­e­mat­ics, Open

Je­re­my Baksh - Math­e­mat­ics, Ad­di­tion­al

Samir Elat­twy - Math­e­mat­ics, Ad­di­tion­al

Vicky Ram­nar­ine - Math­e­mat­ics, Ad­di­tion­al

Re­nee Be­rahz­er - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Open

Tamia Gilkes - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Open

Ce­line Howard - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al

Daniel John - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al

Kather­ine Lue At­tin - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al

Mar­vel­lous Wud­di­vi­ra - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al

Nao­mi Hed­ley - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al

Sarai Koon Koon - Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Ad­di­tion­al