Today the Social Security Board awarded 43 students from around country with full scholarships for the upcoming school year. Students pursuing secondary, tertiary and vocational education sent in applications to nearby SSB branches, and were then selected based on financial need and academic performance. Today we spoke to a few scholarship recipients as well as SSB CEO, Dr. Colin Young, about the awards...
Dr. Colin Young - CEO, Social Security Board
"Today we are here for the 16th Social Security Board Scholarship Awards ceremony where we are awarding 43 recipients of the scholarship. 30 high schools, 12 six forms and 1 vocational scholarship."
"This is made possible through the contributions of employers and employees. 110,000+ people who contribute to the Social Security scheme, a portion of those contributions is a mark for this goodwill program. This is the 16th year that this program has been running. The board has invested in some 700 young people, young men and women, to the tune of $3.2 million over the last 16 years."
"There are currently 109 other students who are at various part of the process. Some of them are in 3rd year 4th year, some in 2nd year of 6th form. It's a competitive process, it's based on financial need and academic merit, where applicants apply at the branches throughout the country. The scholarships are allocated by branch, where we try to proportionally award scholarship based on population size. There is a committee that is set up to then shortlist the candidates, and based on those criteria. And then the final determination is made based on the budget. And so this year, these 43 are recipients cost for this year $59,000 and when we look at the whole 109 that is in the program, it's costing the board $186,000 this year."
Zaphan Neal - Scholarship Recipient
"Well being a resident of the Southside area, this is giving me an opportunity to change how people view boys especially that come from that area. I want to change that statistic about what Southside men amount to. Most people view us as criminals, people that want to steal from you, and I just want to be successful and give back to the community."
Vyomini Perez - High School Scholarship Recipient
"Well knowing the fact that this scholarship is not only benefit me, but my parents I am more than thrilled and honored to be receiving it from Social Security."
Reporter
"Do you have any idea what you want to do when you get older?"
Vyomini Perez - High School Scholarship Recipient
"Well probably a lawyer. I'm not sure, a scientist, I'm not sure but I want to make Belize proud."
The students who have been selected for the Social Security Board scholarship must keep up their good grades in order to keep getting funding.
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