Spirit of kindness – Rum company gives nearly $17M in scholarships

Spirit of kindness – Rum company gives nearly $17M in scholarships

September 14, 2019 0 By Horace Mills

Some 275 students have been awarded a total of nearly $17 million in scholarships from the J. Wray & Nephew (JWN) Foundation.

The awardees are from communities surrounding the company’s business operations in Clarendon, St. Elizabeth and Kingston.

Chairman of the Foundation, Clement Lawrence, said the investment transcends the individual and has a transformational effect on families and communities.

“We hold firm in our belief that our investment will, ultimately, serve to mould and empower Jamaica’s future leaders and, in so doing, contribute to national development,” he said.

The scholarships are valued at $25,000 for the secondary level, and $450,000 at the tertiary.

Scholarship recipient, Lorenzo Blake, who spoke on behalf of the awardees, said the JWN Foundation should be lauded for the work it has been doing in education.

“They say the youth are our future, and you can safely say that you are investors in the future of our nation,” he said during the scholarship awards ceremony, held at Courtleigh Auditorium in Kingston on Thursday, September 12.

Guest speaker, Dr. Neleen Leslie-Piper, in the meantime, said education should be viewed as a way to break generational cycles of poverty.

She stated that she too encountered her fair share of economic challenges.

“My first piece of advice is to bloom where you are planted…” advised Dr Leslie-Piper, a lecturer at the College of Business and Management at the University of Technology.

She noted that many of the scholarship recipients are from communities that are not the wealthiest or the most developed.

“As a country girl, I know the struggles that the youth in our less affluent and rural communities face in finding opportunities to pursue their dreams,” Dr. Leslie-Harper said. “I want to thank the JWN Foundation for their focus on these communities.”


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