Can­cer sur­vivor Al­lan Ab­dool has won a $2 mil­lion schol­ar­ship to study ma­rine bi­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi.

The Na­pari­ma Col­lege grad­u­ate, who is now a dive mas­ter, is ex­pect­ed to join a Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic team in Au­gust for an ex­pe­di­tion to cap­ture the beau­ty of To­ba­go’s coral reefs.

Ab­dool said his fight with can­cer and his pas­sion for the ocean has mo­ti­vat­ed him to achieve these feats.

Af­ter beat­ing can­cer and sur­viv­ing on one kid­ney, Ab­dool is now a sub-sea div­er, un­der­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­ph­er, a mem­ber of the Foot Fel­lows Ho­n­ours Pro­gramme, one of the re­gion’s youngest scu­ba div­ing in­struc­tors and win­ner of an Isaac Be­she­vis Singer schol­ar­ship.

The schol­ar­ship is named for the 1978 win­ner of the No­bel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, Isaac Ba­she­vis Singer, a Pol­ish-born Amer­i­can Jew­ish writer.

As he pre­pares to join the Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic team on an ex­pe­di­tion to pho­to­graph To­ba­go’s coral reefs, Ab­dool said he is liv­ing a dream.

De­spite his many ac­com­plish­ments, he said there is still one fight ahead—a mis­sion to save the seas.

“Grow­ing up know­ing and be­ing so grate­ful for hav­ing sur­vived, I want­ed to al­ways try my best to make the most out of the many op­por­tu­ni­ties life has to of­fer in such a way that feels per­son­al to me and what I en­joy do­ing,” he re­vealed.

Ab­dool re­called that at preschool he was not al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in preschool swim­ming lessons.

“My mom took me out and joined me in a new school. Now I am a dive mas­ter and one of the youngest scu­ba div­ing in­struc­tors in the re­gion,” he said with a smile.

He ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the Isaac Ba­she­vis Singer schol­ar­ship which he said “means a lot for me and what I can en­vi­sion my­self achiev­ing de­spite all the chal­lenges that were in my way, like sur­viv­ing can­cer and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic quar­an­tine.”

Ab­dool said he is ea­ger to make a dif­fer­ence as a ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist and is ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing the oceans.

He urged chil­dren fac­ing health com­pli­ca­tions and strug­gling with stud­ies or dreams not to let their health com­pli­ca­tions keep them down.

“Stay true to your dreams and what it is you love or want to achieve in life. Do not feel the bur­den of need­less lim­i­ta­tions; find a way around them and make the most of life in a way you can en­joy,” he ad­vised.

Ab­dool sees his ex­pe­ri­ences and knowl­edge as tools to in­spire and as­sist oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those fac­ing health chal­lenges.

“I want to show them there’s still so much that life has to of­fer de­spite the block­ades in the way. In­spire them to find what they love and show them that, no mat­ter what oth­ers may say about what they can achieve, to stay true to their dreams—things do get bet­ter.”

His moth­er, Vil­iana Ra­moutars­ingh, said she was im­mense­ly proud of his ac­com­plish­ments.

“He has shown that we can nav­i­gate our paths through life’s chal­lenges. For par­ents of chil­dren who have can­cer, this is not the end. Can­cer is not a death sen­tence,” she said.

Grand­moth­er Beat­riz Ra­moutars­ingh thanked Al­lan’s teach­ers and scout in­struc­tors for help­ing to mould him. She said his ex­pe­ri­ence at Na­pari­ma Col­lege and his ex­po­sure to the Sea Scouts pre­pared him for suc­cess.

Ab­dool will leave in Ju­ly for the Gala­pa­gos Is­lands, fol­low­ing which he will ac­com­pa­ny the Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic team to pho­to­graph the coral reefs off Spey­side, To­ba­go. He will then fly to Mi­a­mi to be­gin his stud­ies in ma­rine bi­ol­o­gy.