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Elicia Roberts: Reaching for her dreams

Published:Wednesday | January 9, 2019 | 12:00 AMVanessa James/Gleaner Writer
Roberts
Elicia Roberts smiles for the camera.
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Imagine waking up each day to constant reminders of your goals but having those goals seem out of reach. So, you work hard and push just to get your fingertips on the very thing that has eluded you for so long. Elicia Roberts has a dream and is making strides to achieve it.

The 27-year-old Antiguan national hopes to become an entrepreneur while maintaining a career with the Caribbean Community or the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States as a communication analyst and researcher.

In an effort to take a step closer to her dreams, Roberts decided to complete her tertiary studies at The University of the West Indies, Mona, where she pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in integrated marketing communications with a minor in gender and development studies.

Her undergraduate studies were mostly funded by scholarships; one from the Office of the Prime Minister in Antigua and Barbuda and the other from the International Women's Club of Antigua and Barbuda.

 

Requirements

 

"The prime minister's office scholarship is awarded to anyone pursuing tertiary education, while the International Women's Club had requirements, where I had to maintain a grade point average of 3.0 during my final year at the Antigua State College, as well as an interview telling why I should be the recipient," Roberts told The Gleaner.

Roberts stated that both scholar-ships paid for her first year at The UWI, with the prime minister's scholarship funding the second and third years.

According to Roberts, it has been a difficult journey leading her to the present, but even the difficulties have yielded good fruit in the form of her business, BeeYou Media. "My business started in 2015 as a means to earn income to purchase my ticket for my trip home that Christmas," she said.

Roberts explained that her first camera was a Fujifilm, but it did not produce the picture quality that her clients expected, so after receiving her scholarship, she used a portion to upgrade to a Nikon camera.

"I started to take pictures for my flatmates and persons around UWI campus, and the first company I worked with here was Osmosis Caribbean," she said.

BeeYou Media offers social-media management and photography services, which align well with her hobbies of photography and video editing. She hopes to impact people's lives through her passion and the work she hopes to be part of in the future.

 

Passion

 

"I'm ultimately passionate about changing the lives of those around for the better in hope that they'll grasp the opportunity to make a better life for themselves," Roberts said.

She further stated that her passion is driven by her love for human beings, and this could be seen from the smile she wore throughout the interview. Like Ziggy Marley, love seems to be Roberts' religion; she stated that in order to impact someone's life, one has to start with love. "Sharing our love for another human being, even if we don't know them, seems strange, but it gets easier with practice," she said.

Roberts believes that people are born to help others as it is built into our DNA. She expresses on the possibi-lity of experiencing inexplicable joy when one gives of themself without being asked.

"This is how I plan to impact the lives of others - offering second chances, loving beyond faults and errors, because at the end of the day, we are called to love one another," Roberts said, smiling.

The self-described over-achiever admits that she will not achieve her dream overnight, but she will never give up. Roberts is currently pursuing a master's degree in gender and development studies, with a specific focus on climate change and the Caribbean's adaptive capacity.

vanessa.james@gleanerjm.com