2 Programs Benefit from BWS Contributions

Roger Bradley

Each of the various representatives, including Roger Bradley and Ritchel Dominguez, described their respective programs.  The ‘I am Belize’ Scholarship Program began several years ago and was primarily funded through the B.N.E. Trust Fund.  Meanwhile it is the first time Belize is hosting the CODICADER Games.  In accepting the contributions of BWS, an overview of the two programs was provided.

Roger Bradley, Restore Belize

“The program is aimed at assisting students who are in economically challenged circumstances to complete their secondary education.  With time private individuals have also sponsored students and this subprogram is called ‘Adopt a Student’.  The program’s overarching goal is community empowerment that enables personal development, social participation and productivity for a fair and just society.  The main objectives of the program are one: to increase secondary school completion rates among the most vulnerable populations.  Two: to provide secondary school aged children with all the services needed for maximizing their education, making healthy life decisions and becoming productive citizens.  The aim of the program is to enable these children to not be stressing out about how the fees will be paid.  All expenses will be covered, we want them just to focus on studying.  And third, to improve community participation and leadership among our youth through this experience in attaining their secondary education.”

Ritchel Dominguez

Ritchel Dominguez, National Sports Council

“CODICADER is starting the sixth.  We have basketball being played in San Ignacio.  We have football in Belmopan, table tennis is Belize City and we say why table tennis da Belize City and then volleyball in Orange Walk.  What we have done is that we had spread it out because we had looked at logistics and because of not having the funding in bringing everyone in Belize City, we decided to tap into other districts so that the other districts could know what is happening and we could get cheaper hotels in the other districts and due to the time of the year it’s a high season for tourism.  So there was a lot of consideration that went into CODICADER and where we should have been hosting and that is one reason why we separated each of them as we should because we want it to look more like an Olympic-style.”