Former Rusea’s High School student Sareka Crawford, who is now studying at The University of the West Indies (UWI), has been awarded this year’s Gillian Whylie Scholarship.

A news release from the scholarship fund said that Crawford will receive $200,000 annually to support her studies in modern languages while at the UWI, and as support if she travels to France where she has applied to the University of Bordeaux to further her studies.

Crawford, who is from Ginger Hill in Hanover, is from a humble home, her father being a carpenter and her mother a waitress at Grand Palladium Hotel.

She graduated from Rusea’s with distinctions in French and Spanish and served at the highest levels in the school’s Key, Spanish, French, Emerging Global Leaders and Peer Counsellors clubs.

Crawford volunteered at the Hanover Police Station and at the University Hospital of the West Indies as a patient assistant. She was a member of the Hands of Love Foundation and Lucea Christian Fellowship Youth Club, and still found time to volunteer at the Hanover Hope Foundation.

“My aspiration is to become a diplomat and a translator,” the release quotes Crawford. “I progressed from being the valedictorian of my graduating primary school class to being the valedictorian of my 2017 graduating class at Rusea’s High School. I, therefore, deserve this scholarship as I use my low-income status not as a barrier, but a launching pad to motivate and propel my success.”

The fund announced that it has also provided a scholarship worth $200,000 to Daedre Maxwell to undertake Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination studies in French and Spanish at St Jago High School.

Maxwell also received distinctions in Spanish and French in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examination and intends to complete studies to become a doctor.

“Becoming a member of the Médecins Sans Frontières [Doctors Without Borders] would be a dream come true,” the quiet but focused Maxwell commented. According to the organisers of the scholarship, studying modern languages will assist Maxwell in reaching that goal.

The scholarship, now in its second year, was created to honour the legacy of caring, thoughtfulness and support for others displayed by Gillian Whylie during her life. A graduate of St Jago High School, Wolmer’s Girls’ School and Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication at the UWI, Whyte was a linguist and, at her passing two years ago, was the president of Alliance Française de la Jamaïque, the French organisation in Jamaica that promotes French language and culture.

The scholarship fund is a registered and certified charity organisation designed to promote the education and vocational training of Jamaican students, with special emphasis on those pursuing studies in modern languages or related disciplines.