Country Coordinator for A Ganar in Barbados, Ytannia Wiggins, came in for just as much praise as her charges who graduated last evening from that programme.
Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, who congratulated the team on its success, was the one full of praise for Ms. Wiggins, during the ceremony at Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
He described her as having demonstrated a level of commitment to the programme in much the same way she did women???s football on the island, ???bringing it from nothing and developing it into quite a successful programme that is still continuing???.
And, he told the A Ganar team: ???That???s the kind of commitment I know that Ytannia demonstrates. She has put 130 per cent into this effort and has kept all of the facilitators, as well as you young people, motivated to reach the heights that I know you can meet.???
While noting the effort was not without some challenges, the Minister said, however, this ought not to prevent them from reaching their goals.??The Education Minister pointed out that graduation did not represent the end of their journey but it was the process and the knowledge which they had acquired on each step of that journey that mattered.
As he encouraged the first cohort of graduates to stay the course and deal with challenges and pitfalls along the way, Mr. Jones said: ???Long may A Ganar continue to give our young people that courage, that dignity, that respect and that discipline.???
A Ganar forms part of Component Two of the US$20 million Skills For the Future Program, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank on behalf of Government. It is being coordinated by Partners of America, Washington D.C., to help Barbados meet the aim of improving quality secondary and post-secondary education.
joy-ann.gill@barbados.gov.bb