The British High Com­mis­sion has an­nounced that two na­tion­als of T&T, Shinelle Smith and Mar­cus Kissoon, have re­ceived ful­ly-fund­ed schol­ar­ships to study in the Unit­ed King­dom for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2021-2022. The award en­ti­tles them to one year of post­grad­u­ate study at a uni­ver­si­ty of their choice.

Smith and Kissoon will join a co­hort of more than 1,000 youth from 100 coun­tries around the world. More than 64,000 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived and 10 per cent of ap­pli­cants were in­ter­viewed on­line, world­wide.

Smith, an ed­u­ca­tor in the fields of Hos­pi­tal­i­ty, Tourism, Event Man­age­ment and En­tre­pre­neur­ship, is the founder of the Trav­el Taxi Ltd, a Caribbean-cen­tred tourism con­sul­tan­cy that pro­motes sus­tain­able, eco-friend­ly trav­el and af­fords hos­pi­tal­i­ty train­ing to small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es with­in the in­dus­try.

She is a mem­ber of the Green Key Na­tion­al Ju­ry of T&T. In this ca­pac­i­ty, her man­date in­cludes the rec­om­men­da­tion of awards for sus­tain­able sites, at­trac­tions, lodg­ing es­tab­lish­ments, and restau­rants un­der the hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism sec­tor. Smith holds a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism, a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Tourism De­vel­op­ment and Man­age­ment, a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in In­no­va­tion, Man­age­ment and En­tre­pre­neur­ship and a CELTA cer­tifi­cate from Cam­bridge.

She will be pur­su­ing post­grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions in Dig­i­tal Teach­ing and Learn­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham. She in­tends to make ed­u­ca­tion more ac­ces­si­ble via vir­tu­al de­liv­ery, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

Kissoon is a mem­ber of the women’s move­ment since 2008. He is the Re­search As­sis­tant for the Break the Si­lence End Child Sex­u­al Abuse, In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies UWI. His ar­eas of work are In­di­an­ness, Mas­culin­i­ties, GBV, Child Sex­u­al Abuse, HIV, and Sex Work. Mar­cus holds a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in In­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary Gen­der Stud­ies from the UWI and his the­sis fo­cused on male sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse.

Shinelle Jamie Smith

He will be read­ing for his MA in Women and Child Abuse Stud­ies at the Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty. When he re­turns to T&T af­ter his schol­ar­ship he plans to en­gage in the sys­temic and pol­i­cy work need­ed to treat with child sex­u­al abuse.

British High Com­mis­sion­er Har­ri­et Cross said: “The Chevening pro­gramme is a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to de­vel­op pro­fes­sion­al­ly, per­son­al­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly while ex­plor­ing the UK’s di­verse cul­tur­al land­scape, awe-in­spir­ing scenery and vi­brant his­to­ry, all the time mak­ing last­ing re­la­tion­ships with peo­ple from around the world.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Shinelle and Mar­cus. Trinidad and To­ba­go should be huge­ly proud of them. They have both demon­strat­ed their po­ten­tial and readi­ness to be fu­ture lead­ers and in­flu­encers in their re­spec­tive fields. I wish them well on their jour­ney and have no doubt they will each con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go on their re­turn.”

Chevening is the UK gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­na­tion­al awards pro­gramme aimed at de­vel­op­ing glob­al lead­ers. Fund­ed by the For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice (FC­DO) and part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions, Chevening of­fers two types of award­—Chevening Schol­ar­ships and Chevening Fel­low­ships—the re­cip­i­ents of which are per­son­al­ly se­lect­ed by British em­bassies and high com­mis­sions through­out the world.

Chevening of­fers a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty for fu­ture lead­ers, in­flu­encers, and de­ci­sion-mak­ers from all over the world to de­vel­op pro­fes­sion­al­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, net­work ex­ten­sive­ly, ex­pe­ri­ence UK cul­ture, and build last­ing pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ships with the UK. Since 1983, over 50,000 pro­fes­sion­als have stud­ied in the UK through Chevening.

Prepa­ra­tions are be­ing made for the schol­ars to de­part for the open­ing of their Sep­tem­ber se­mes­ter.