TWO YOUNG BARBADIAN women have been given a golden opportunity to further their education in Britain.
Firhanna Bulbulia and Jamilia Wylie are among 18 people from across the Eastern Caribbean to have been awarded this year’s Chevening scholarships.
For Bulbulia this award caps what has been a tremendous year having been earlier chosen to be among the Queen’s Young Leaders, along with another scholarship winner Tevin Shepherd of St Lucia.
Bulbulia, who is a teacher of over six years’ experience, will study for a Master’s degree in education, gender and international development at the University of London. She has worked with a number of groups including the Barbados Association of Muslim Ladies, the Barbados Youth Development Council and the Caribbean Regional Youth Council in different areas of development and gender equality.
The young female Muslim activist is hoping on completion of her studies that she can use her new skills to implement programmes into the different organisations with which she works.
Wylie, who will pursue a Master’s degree in renewable energy: technology and sustainability at University of Reading, said she has been working toward it for a long time. She plans to get the degree and return to Barbados and eventually become an expert in the area and a lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI).
“I believe that Barbados, although we have made significant steps in renewable energy, there is a lot more that we can be doing. We made an ambitious target of a 29 per cent renewable energy conversion and efficiency by the year 2029 and I honestly believe that to be able to achieve that target or more we need more renewable energy professionals in academic, research, legal and administrative roles,” Wylie said.
Most of the beneficiaries this year went to St Lucia which gained six of the awards.
Yesterday, the awardees gathered at the British High Commission’s Bridgetown office where High Commissioner Victoria Deane congratulated the scholars and expressed pleasure that this year every single country in the Eastern Caribbean to which the High Commission is accredited had a scholarship recipient.
She noted that St Kitts had been dominant over the years, but St Lucia had taken the top spot this year. The country also has created a first for the scheme as husband and wife pair Tommy Descartes and Melissa Hippolyte-Descartes will pursue degrees in Economics at The University of Nottingham.
“I think everybody just came out and really was determined to get the scholarship. I think we have a wonderful crop of scholars and it is a reflection of things to come from St Lucia in terms of its growth and development,” Descartes said.
Descartes, who is studying Economics and Econometrics, said the fact that he and his wife were accepted to study at the same university also shows that Chevening was pro-family.
Hippolyte-Descartes, whose focus will be on economics, said both she and her husband were passionate about economic development and excited to get an opportunity to study what they love which will allow them to return to the Caribbean and to serve as economists with the government of St Lucia.
The other scholars are Kurt Williams of Antigua and Barbuda; Fernillia Felix, Cherysa Anselm and Oscar George of Dominica; Shanelle Simmonds of St Kitts and Nevis; Zoe Hagley, Kymanne Andrew-Alexander and Kinna Marrast-Victor of Grenada; Bradley Douglas and Jeville John of St Vincent and the Grenadines; and Christal Jean, Ernette Kangal and Miguel Trim of St Lucia. (LK)
