THE charming smile reserved for patients on the wards at the Kingston Public Hospital would have, up to recently, belied the struggles Cordell Green was facing.

But Green was always a fighter, and even the prospect of not being able to complete medical school didn’t make his energy falter.

The 25-year-old final-year medical student at the University of the West Indies (UWI) had always struggled, from the time he was a boy growing up in Buff Bay, Portland, raised by his mother with five siblings who alternated going to school because of poor finances.

An absentee father put a strain on the family, and his mother had to raise goats and sell goods on weekends to earn a meagre income for the family to survive.

With the little they earned, Green said he and his siblings took turns on weekdays to attend Buff Bay Primary School.

After sitting his grade six exit exams, young Green got a place at Annotto Bay High School in St Mary, but his mother told him she couldn’t afford secondary schooling.

He decided to contact his father with the news, with the hope of getting assistance.

“My father said he would assist me only if I came to live with him and attend Happy Grove High School in Portland. I got the transfer, but to my surprise, I went to live with my grandmother in St Thomas. I had to assist her with selling, but I still did not attend school as often as I should have. I was not at the reading level that I should be, and I was failing at most of my subjects,” said Green, who was last week awarded a scholarship from Food for the Poor Jamaica to complete his studies.

After starting Happy Grove High School, young Green was enrolled in a reading programme and his academic performance improved significantly.

In third form, he said he was named the top-performing student and in fourth form, he announced that he wanted to become a doctor. His grades in the sciences made him eligible to sit the science subjects — chemistry, biology, physics, agricultural science — along with food and nutrition, information technology, mathematics and English language.

He aced them all, and continued to the sixth-form programme at Titchfield High School, where he pursued science-based subjects at the advanced level.

“It wasn’t easy to pass those subjects. During that period, we didn’t have electricity for a long period due to the passage of a hurricane. I had to travel back and forth to the Manchioneal Police Station in order to study and do research,” Green said.

Enrolling at UWI in 2009 posed another major challenge. He was interested in the medical programme but didn’t possess some vital documents, nor could he afford the tuition, and he was encouraged to enrol in the Faculty of Pure & Applied Sciences temporarily. In 2010 he was accepted into the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Over the last six years, having proved his mettle, sharing his struggles with his relatives, community members and close friends, he has been given assistance to pursue his studies, until recently, when his benefactors fell on hard times.

“I applied for scholarships and asked persons to assist me financially. Mr Palmer, a man from my community, told me that he was going to ask Food for the Poor to assist me,” Green said.

After hearing his story, Food for the Poor awarded him, and 24 others, scholarships to the tune of $2 million last week.

“I don’t know what I would have done without Food for the Poor. I am so grateful. Thanks to the donors, I don’t have to be burdened with not knowing how or if I would be able to complete my studies,” Green said.

“The assistance will help me to finish my studies, advance my career as a medical doctor, and help me build a better Jamaica.”