Fifteen receive Jamaica 60 Scholarships

The main reason Arianna Buchanan, a teacher’s child, applied for one of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s Jamaica 60 Scholarships, is because she knew firsthand that her mother’s meagre salary was only enough for hand-to-mouth living each month. Buchanan, who copped one of the 15 scholarships on offer from the ministry, told The Gleaner that her mother had struggled to pay the annual tuition fees in full for her to attend the Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College, this while caring for her only child, their home and other financial responsibilities.

Now in her final year pursuing a bachelor’s degree in education with a Spanish major and French minor, she outlined the difficulties she had experienced in her search for help.

“In applying for scholarships, they always tend to ask for her salary, and that in itself is a dealbreaker. Her salary looks like it’s a lot of money, but people don’t actually look at the breakdown. So I needed to ease the burden from my mom’s shoulders. And I do not work, but with the full-time schedule that we have at school, I have not been able to get any evening or graveyard shifts,” she explained.

“When I applied, they asked me about my father. Yes, I know him, but I don’t know much about him, so I can’t really put much out there to tell them that I have a lot of help from my dad,” she said.

Buchanan says she has watched her mother being “the big sister in the family”, and even stretching her dollar among family members in need.

As a student of St James Prep and Montego Bay High schools in St James, she said she witnessed the daily struggles of her mother, Suzette Freckleton-Buchanan, a teacher at Green Pond High School, and knew that her educational success was their only way out.

On Tuesday when Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith announced her as an awardee, she was elated.

“I feel really grateful. I actually don’t usually get scholarships, because I do not show any form of need because my mother is a teacher. So even though we struggle, [as] she’s a single parent, I’m thankful that I got help with my tuition,” Buchanan told The Gleaner.

Buchanan is one of 15 students from across the island who was awarded from a pool of funds totalling US$40,000 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s Jamaica 60 Scholarships.

The funds were raised at the Jamaica 60 Diamond Jubilee Gala, which was organised by Jamaica’s Consul General to New York, Alsion Roach Wilson, with the support of the Jamaican diaspora community in New York and surrounding cities and states.

Buchanan says her desire to help children excel first sparked her interest in the field of education, as did the fact that it is her mother’s career choice. She aims to lecture at the tertiary level.

“I love teaching. Have you ever looked on the kids’ faces as they finally understand things? I feel good when that happens, but I’m not really feeling the secondary schools]. I want to do tertiary [level]and relate to the [older] kids and have discussions in class and not [have them] getting in trouble,” she said.

Freckleton-Buchanan told The Gleaner she has no regrets investing in her only child.

“I remember when I encouraged her to go to teachers’ college, she said to me, ‘Mommy, I’m not going to teach at the secondary level.’ She said, ‘I want to be a professor.’ So that’s her aim, and I have no problem. This (her achievement) proves that hard work pays off. I’ve always encouraged her to be a hard worker and to do her best, and this is where she sees that her best pays off, so she can’t seh, ‘Mommy telling her a lie,’” Freckleton-Buchanan said.

“As it relates to her being a teacher, for me it is the base. I’m a teacher myself and now that I know what I know, she’s going to be the best at it,” she said.

Other recipients of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s Jamaica 60 Scholarships were Akilah Campbell, Amaya Marson, Calvin Stephenson, Courtie-Ann Robinson, Dashanelle Bailey, Demoy Calvin, Hannah-Lee Harris, Javon Francis, Lascelles Williams, Shalice Ingram, Shanae Montague, Terry Ann Wilson, Tericia Wolfe and Tianna Reid.

Their fields of study include agricultural education, animal science, banking and finance, biotechnology, computer science, engineering, marketing, medicine, nursing, statistics and economics, science and technology, and teaching.

At the symbolic handover ceremony, Johnson Smith said the areas in which the awardees are now enrolled “are essential to building the transformative capacity of Jamaica’s economy and the continued thrust towards development of 21st century skills in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics”. She commended the awardees and encouraged them to continue excelling.

“To the awardees, I share with you a special sense of pride and appreciation, and I look forward expectantly to the successful conclusion of your respective programmes ... . Today’s awardees are testament to the potential of our people, our finest asset as a nation,” she said.

The foreign affairs minister also expressed thanks to the Jamaican diaspora whose philanthropy, she said, forms the bedrock of long-standing relationships.

“The Government of Jamaica is deeply grateful to our Jamaican diaspora, private-sector partners and the friends of Jamaica for supporting this very noble cause. Of significant importance is the fact that the awardees were needs-based, with students receiving varying degrees of support, from partial to full tuition,” Johnson Smith said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com