Castries – Monday, September 19, 2011– The Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority (SLASPA) recognized five deserving students at an awards ceremony last week at SLASPA’s Headquarters Conference Room. These students are recipients of SLASPA’s yearly scholarships, which are awarded to high achievers who sat the Common Entrance Examination. In addition, SLASPA recognized the achievements of three outgoing scholarship holders who successfully completed their CXC examinations and gained accepted into Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. Over fifty students have passed through SLASPA’s scholarship programme and gone on to academic and eventually career success. A special PowerPoint presentation was made honouring past scholarship holders, certificates and trophies were awarded to the incoming and outgoing scholarship holders.

Delivering the featured address, Ms. Beverly Dulcie, Manager Employee Development – SLASPA, who spearheads the Scholarship program stated “the scholarship demonstrates the Authority’s dedication and commitment to the welfare of not only our employees but to their children as well. These scholarships are granted to assist parents in sending the children to secondary school as well as rewarding the children for a good job done at Common Entrance exams. In the past years, we awarded four scholarships, but upped the ante by offering five this year, which we will maintain. We have also made another commitment by offering two tertiary level scholarships starting from this year and we look forward to continuing this.”

Crisie Joseph, one of this year’s scholarship recipients, who gained acceptance to St. Joseph’s Convent addressed the gathering on behalf of her fellow scholarship holders said “I stand here before you as a proud recipient of SLASPA’s 2011 scholarship. On behalf of my fellow awardees, I would like to thank the Authority for their support and investment in our education and assure the Authority that I will maintain a high academic record and act as a positive role model for my peers.”

Outgoing scholarship holder Fidel Michel said, “the last five years of our education has had its highs and lows, successes and failures, but we have remained on track and now we are reaping the fruits of our labour which will give us a solid foundation to pursue excellence at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. As we pursue a new chapter in our education, let us pledge that we will make excellence our motto, so that both SLASPA and our parents will be proud of our achievements.”

Finally, former SLASPA scholarship holder Zaheer Popo, made a few remarks at this years ceremony “I would like to say a heartfelt thanks to SLASPA for continually providing the opportunity for scholarship holders over the past years. If memory serves me correctly, SLASPA is one of the few companies who consistently makes this their social responsibility year after year. I would like to commend SLASPA for maintaining this program and hope that you continue to provide this opportunity for many more students in the future.”

This year’s scholarship awardees were Crisie Joseph, Shania Goodman, Faith C. Cyril, Cornelia P. Nelson and Rochelle Jn. Baptiste. The students’ performance is consistently monitored by Ms. Dulcie and her team throughout the 5 years, and assistance given when needed.