Run by stu­dents from the east-west cor­ri­dor, Mon­key Spray cap­tured the pres­ti­gious 2014 Com­pa­ny of the Year award when Ju­nior Achieve­ment of T&T held its 44th An­nu­al Fu­ture Un­lim­it­ed Awards Cer­e­mo­ny and Ban­quet on June 7.

A re­lease said the packed ball­room of the Hilton Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre went up in sus­tained ap­plause as pres­i­dent of Mon­key Spray, Ja­da Blanc, re­ceived the win­ner's tro­phy on be­half of stu­dents of sev­en sec­ondary schools which made up the com­pa­ny.

"This is a hap­py mo­ment for all of us. It was a lot of hard work and com­mit­ment but we en­joyed the en­tire pe­ri­od. I want to thank all the stu­dents, our ad­vi­sors and teach­ers, and JA, for this great op­por­tu­ni­ty for giv­ing us re­al­is­tic in­sights in­to the world of busi­ness," said Blanc, a stu­dent of Bish­op's Anstey East Col­lege. Blanc copped the award for Pres­i­dent of the Year.

For top­ping the pro­gramme, Mon­key Spray won a trip for four stu­dents to Pe­ru lat­er this year.

Achiev­er of the Year was Az­iza Louren­co, a stu­dent of AS­JA Girls Col­lege, Tu­na­puna, a mem­ber of ICE (In­tro­duc­ing a Colour­ful Ex­pe­ri­ence) com­pa­ny.

JA Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent J Er­rol Lewis told the gath­er­ing of stu­dents, teach­ers, par­ents and ad­vi­sors that he was proud of the pos­i­tive im­pact the an­nu­al pro­gramme has made in the lives of the young peo­ple of T&T. "All of our youths are not de­viant or mis­be­haved. If they are, we have to guide them," Lewis said.

He dis­closed that the 33 com­pa­nies from this year's pro­gramme had gen­er­at­ed sales of some $400,000, with $80,000 com­ing out of the trade fair held at Wood­ford Square, Port of Spain, in April. Phrase It, coun­selled by en­er­gy com­pa­ny BP Trinidad, was award­ed the tro­phy for Best Trade Fair Booth.

The fea­ture ad­dress was de­liv­ered by Madame Jus­tice Maria Wil­son, a for­mer JA achiev­er her­self. Jus­tice Wil­son urged the stu­dents to be agents of change. "Let your voic­es be heard. Show that you can tack­le the prob­lems fac­ing the young peo­ple of our so­ci­ety. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion in this per­son­al de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme has shown that you have the tal­ent, the dri­ve and the at­ti­tude to do just that," she said.

Ear­li­er, JA Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent Lewis made a pas­sion­ate ap­peal for more spon­sors to sup­port the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ac­tiv­i­ties. "We need more com­pa­nies to come on board. But first and fore­most, we have to thank bpTT for their long­stand­ing part­ner­ship. Had it not been for bpTT, there would be no Ju­nior Achieve­ment. We al­so have to thank our oth­er part­ners, CIBC First Caribbean, FCB, NL­CB, NP, Acelor­Mit­tal, GE and TCL for their sup­port," Lewis said.

BP T&T spon­sored 10 of the 33 JA com­pa­nies in the 2014 pro­gramme.

Joel Primus, Com­mu­ni­ty Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Stake­hold­er Re­la­tions Ad­vis­er, said bpTT re­mained com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of the peo­ple of T&T.

"Ed­u­ca­tion and en­ter­prise de­vel­op­ment and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing are two of the four pil­lars in our Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty agen­da. Our in­vest­ment in and our en­dur­ing re­la­tion­ship with Ju­nior Achieve­ment is one of the great­est ex­am­ples of how we are fo­cus­ing on ed­u­cat­ing and cre­at­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of busi­ness lead­ers in T&T," Primus said.

A spe­cial award was pre­sent­ed in mem­o­ry of mur­dered at­tor­ney Dana See­ta­hal, a for­mer JA stu­dent for her con­tri­bu­tion to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. It was ac­cept­ed by Dr Ja­nine See­ta­hal.

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