ALPART recently announced its scholarship winners for the 2006/2007 academic year, at an awards ceremony held at their offices in St Elizabeth. The awardees for three-year scholarships to the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, are business student Nickeysha Myers of Nain, pure and applied sciences student Deidre-Ann Ennis of Goshen, and humanities and education student Jodi Bernard of Black River.

The Alpart scholarship for engineering at the University of Technology (UTech) was awarded to Sean Graham of Santa Cruz, while a business management scholarship to the Northern Caribbean University went to Bobsie Levy of Warminister.

A sixth scholarship for a two-year diploma course at GC Foster College was won by Kadian Flemmings of Goshen, St Elizabeth.

The annual Alpart Scholarship Awards was introduced in 2004 by Alpart’s gerenal manager, Darrel Harriman, who saw it as an opportunity to provide more educational support for students from Alpart’s operating area communities.

The scholarship package also includes a two-year diploma course at the College of Agriculture, Science & Education (CASE), with a commitment by Alpart to sponsor the awards over a 10-year period.

UWI administrative assistant Rosalee Gayle-Thomas said that since 2004, 18 students from St Elizabeth and Manchester have benefited from the programme. Gayle-Thomas noted that the Alpart scholarships “are greatly appreciated by the university in general and the Office of Student Financing in particular, as tuition and book fees for tertiary level students can be a daunting task”.

She described Alpart as taking “a holistic approach” to nation building since apart from education, the company was involved in many community building projects, including agriculture, health and youth development.

Harriman and members of the Alpart employee team made the presentations.