THE Carreras postgraduate scholarship recipient for 2005 is 23-year old Winston Campbell, a graduate of the University of the West Indies, Wolmer’s Boys School and Central Branch All Age in Jones Town.

Campbell was selected earlier this year out of over 100 applicants for the coveted scholarship, worth $600,000 per annum.

Over the next year, he will be pursuing a Masters degree programme in Pre-Columbian and Native American Art with a concentration on Jamaican history, at the University of Essex University in the United Kingdom.

His success crowns a history of financial struggle, overcome only through sheer courage, focused determination and hard work.

Campbell grew up in the West Kingston community of Hannah Town, where poverty, violence and lawlessness were everyday realities.

His parents, Pauline Grant and Rainford Campbell had many difficulties covering educational expenses for Winston and his four younger siblings.

He remembers requesting free rides on the buses several times in order to get to his classes on the UWI campus and has walked home at least twice. Through part time jobs, school loans, soliciting assistance, and washing cars, he managed to meet his expenses.

At the same time, he carried an extra-curricula load that included representing the UWI in the 2003-2004 KSAFA major league football competition, participating in several art and athletic competitions, membership in the JAMM Production Dancers, and serving in a number of children’s homes.

Accepting his award at a Carreras ceremony last month, Campbell said his long term professional goal is to identify and develop a Jamaican visual arts industry.

“The global art economy generated US$3.5 billion in terms of sales.Europe and the US accounted for 90 per cent of the value,” he said in a Career&Education interview.

“If this industry is so big, we should find a way in light of globalisation, to take our piece of the pie.”

Already he has drafted a 10-year plan, which he is currently marketing as the Visual Arts Empowerment Project 2005-2015.