NCU awards 64 scholarships under RESCUE 2020 project

During the course of this academic year, 64 persons have benefited from scholarships awarded by Northern Caribbean University (NCU) under its three-year Restoring Every Student’s Confidence Using Education (RESCUE 2020) project, launched in June 2107.

This was disclosed by NCU President Dr Lincoln Edwards while speaking at the official opening of the university’s North Jamaica Regional Campus at Evansville Business Complex in St Ann’s Bay on Thursday.

“This year, 64 persons have benefited from the RESCUE Scholarship, 64 persons who did not know that it was possible to receive a tertiary education,” Edwards revealed.

“They have received scholarships and some of those persons, I cannot speak publicly the things they were involved in, but they have turned their backs on those things; they have started a new life and they’re doing well at Northern Caribbean University,” he added to applause from the audience.

OFFERING HOPE

RESCUE 2020 is a three-year campaign aimed at raising funds to provide scholarships for needy students and also to construct a greatly needed dental hygiene and community outreach clinic and to finance special NCU initiatives in at-risk communities. The project is designed to offer hope, provide opportunities and help disillusioned persons find meaning and purpose to their lives.

Edwards urged support for the initiative.

“As a nation, if we’re serious about crime, then we should put our resources where our desire is. So if we desire crime ­reduction, then support the RESCUE campaign so that Northern Caribbean University can adopt more of those persons,” Edwards urged.

The president hailed the institution’s growth, seen through the facility, which was shifted from its location in Salem, Runaway Bay, earlier this year.

“This new beginning that we’re celebrating here today is representative of growth and strategic development, and is significant to the proliferation of the ‘whole person’ education that we offer at Northern Caribbean University. We continue to do our part in helping persons to thrive for excellence and to do their best,” Edwards pointed out.

Meanwhile, guest speaker at the opening, Dr Ransford Davidson, business relationship manager at JN Bank, challenged the institution not to become “an island in the stream” but to be fully integrated in the St Ann community, as it has done in Manchester for the past 100 years.

“We hope that you will build on the opportunities to work closely with our families and communities. This includes creating more opportunities for students to work with social enterprises, use businesses to create change, and boldly tackle social problems,” he said.

Davidson, who is also a graduate of NCU, where he received his first degree, said that through social enterprise, students and graduates can be provided with opportunities to develop entrepreneurial skills, which are applicable in all types of business, and to “actively demonstrate these skills to ­potential employers”.

He added: “It also offers an opportunity for members of the university’s staff to develop enterprise solutions within their own areas of interest, which will enable the institution to interact with and offer solutions to local businesses, or respond to local issues and work closely with the community. This is a part of what we need here in many of our districts.”

Meanwhile, senior superintendent of police in charge of St Ann, Calvin Small, in his greetings at the opening, promised to encourage his officers to take advantage of the opportunities that NCU offers. The new NCU campus is located just a few hundred metres from the police station in St Ann’s Bay.