Pact awards two big scholarships
While many small countries are almost totally dependent on foreign funding for conservation projects, Belize is fortunate that we generate funds domestically through PACT, the Protected Areas Conservation Trust. And today some of that money was invested in Belize?s most important resource: it?s people.
Carla Urbina, Scholarship Recipent
? I think more than anything, exciting because we have been for awhile applying, going through the application process, going to Guatemala and here in Belize to sit the entrance exams, going through everything and we were still nervous over what if we can?t get the funds. It?s very difficult to make just a huge loan and go somewhere abroad to pursue a master?s degree.
Hector Alpuche, Scholarship Recipient
?I am very excited; I think that this scholarship was well overdue. I have been trying my best to get out to further my studies. I am trying always to excel you know so that something can come along with this.?
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
There were not just enough words for Carla Urbina and Hector Alpuche to express the gratitude both feel about the opportunity they have been given to pursue their Master?s Degree in Sustainable Development. The pair, who hold a bachelors degree in Business from the University of Belize, are the first recipients to benefit from a new scholarship programme jointly offered by U.B., the University of Costa Rica and the Protected Areas Conservation Trust. This morning, a memorandum of understanding was signed between PACT and both Universities.
Valerie Woods, Executive Director, PACT
?In Belize, we talk about natural resource management and in many instances we tend to confine that to just raw conservation, in a word, protection and preservation, but we have a lot of challenges in sustaining the management of it and really putting a business skill to managing what we call protected areas or in general natural resources. The significance today is that we have formed a linkage; we have created a partnership with a university that has specific expertise in applying business skills to the area of protected areas management.?
Urbina and Alpuche leave the country this weekend for Costa Rica where they will pursue their two-year Master?s Degree programme at INCAE, one of the leading business schools throughout Latin America.
Dr. Corinth Morter Lewis, President, U.B.
?The university right now only offers Bachelor degrees. We do masters, but we do it in conjunction with other universities and INCAE will really help us especially in the area of natural resource management and so this collaboration with PACT, INCAE and U.B. is really critical to our–we think what is part of our mandate. We really see that important for Belize, the natural resource management area and so we push that really a lot.
PACT has provided one of the scholarships in full and it has collaborated with INCAE to make the second scholarship available. The total value of the two-year Master?s programme is sixty-five thousand Belize dollars.
Earlier this week seven other Belizeans received scholarships from PACT to pursue educational opportunities in natural resource management. Most of PACT?s funding comes from a fee levied on departing non Belizean passengers at the airport as well as from arriving cruise visitors and people entering various archaeological sites.
