Three graduates of Ardenne High School in St Andrew are excited at being among a batch of 14 young Jamaicans chosen to travel to Cuba in August to pursue medical and other studies, free of cost.

Other fields of study that will be pursued include nursing, dental services and accounting.

One of the Ardenne graduates is 19-year-old Saunshay Smiley, who will be pursuing veterinary studies for five years. While it gives her great pleasure to know that the financial burden of pursing that degree has been lifted from her family’s shoulders, she is even more excited that she will have a high school friend, whom she refers to as her “fellow ‘Stardenite’”, with her in Cuba.

“It is a pleasure and it is really great to be able to have a home away from home in the sense of our Ardenne community,” Smiley said at the Cuban Embassy in St Andrew on Wednesday.

“We are always taught that when you leave Ardenne you will always see your classmates, or someone you know that went to Ardenne, everywhere. It is literally coming true because when I came for the interview Atia Smith came in after me. I was really surprised because I didn’t know she was applying. Having someone there to go through this journey with me is really an honour,” she shared.

Smiley explained that her passion for helping animals is at the foundation of her choice to study veterinary science.

“I know it is really hard to study that specific field here in Jamaica, so when I learned about this programme from one of my co-workers, I wasn’t sure if I was going to apply really because the distinction I would be applying under there were only three slots for that. I was told to just go ahead and if I don’t get through I could just try again next year, and luckily I got the news when I was at work. To be the beacon of light for young Jamaicans coming up who want to be veterinarians, it’s really good,” Smiley said.

Her friend, Atia Smith, who will be studying nursing, told the Jamaica Observer that she was very happy knowing that fellow Ardenne past students will be heading to Cuba with her.

“At least I have somebody who I know and can speak to, so I feel very comforted knowing that fellow Ardenites are going with me. I am excited to be a part of this programme as a second-time applicant. I will be able to experience Cuba and a different culture and I have a friend along the way that I know while I am there. I have a friend from here who will be on the plane going to Cuba and who will be in Cuba and we will also be meeting new people and learning new things. I am generally excited for the ‘Stardenites’, as our former principal Nadine Malloy would call us,” Smith said.

Nineteen-year-old Marion Brown, who will be pursuing medicine, shared that she was “overjoyed and excited to be embarking on this new journey”.

She sees it as “not only an opportunity to become a doctor but also to learn a different language and interact with people from different cultures”.

Cuban Ambassador to Jamaica Fermin Quiñones Sánchez said he was proud that the scholarship awardees are talented and dedicated young Jamaicans with excellent academic qualifications but whose local origin made it difficult for them to pursue their dreams of continuing university studies.

“These scholarships, offered under the Cuban/Jamaican bilateral scholarship programme for the 2025-2026 academic year, are a symbol of the humanist and solidarity based character of the Cuban revolution and of Cuba’s cooperative relations with sister nations of the Caribbean including Jamaica,” he said.

“This constitutes significant evidence of the vast principle held by the Cuban foreign policy of sharing with other people what we have and not what we have too much of. It is the decision of our country to preserve its contribution to the training of human resources of developing countries and communities in need despite the hardships imposed on the people of Cuba by the United States Government which constitutes the longest existing unilateral coercive measures in history,” the ambassador said.