Courts Dares Youths to Dream

Courts Dare to Dream Scholarship program kicked into gear today for eight students from across the country. They received four-year scholarships to high schools which the company says is part of their corporate responsibility to give back to the community. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Do you want to be a doctor, an entrepreneur, work in tourism or in the environmental field when you get older? Well UNICOMER/Courts’ Dare to Dream Scholarship Program is offering primary school students just that – an opportunity to advance their education and fulfill their dreams to become future leaders in various sectors of the country. Today, eight primary school students from Corozal, Orange Walk, Belize and Cayo Districts were the lucky recipients of the four-year high school scholarship and will join the other forty students already involved in the program.

Grisel Carballo

Grisel Carballo, Marketing Officer, UNICOMER

“As part of our company being corporate social responsible, we take pride in giving full scholarship to these students. Over the past years, when we mean scholarships, it means that if they start first form, we pay them up to fourth form which means we guide them to getting a diploma or a degree or a university degree or so forth.”

This year, Courts has managed to provide eighty percent school fees, tuition and books scholarship to the recipients, several of whom got top scores at their primary schools. Marketing Officer Grisel Carballo says that they were also chosen based on their financial need.

Grisel Carballo

“The first criteria is definitely financial assistance. Up on the application, one of the requirements is for them to send in their report cards from standard three to standard six; their P.S.E. reports, recommendations from teachers, their principal. And coming in from their parent, they would have to send their income tax to see how much they actually earn…apart from that, seeing their grades.”

Meet Shea Moreno…his powerful story of persevering through adversities won over the committee.  The thirteen-year-old from Orange Walk is attending summer classes at Orange Walk Technical High School after battling cancer for three years and now in remission. Despite missing many days of school, he studied hard and came out on top in his classes and is now a successful recipient of the Dare to Dream scholarship.

Shea Moreno

Shea Moreno, Scholarship Recipient

“It is an opportunity to take my studies further and to have a solid good educational background and to achieve any goals in life and I’d like to thank Courts and UNICOMER for this scholarship. I have been a cancer patient for three years. I currently just went out in remission, but after five years, I will be totally cancer free. But I will still have to go ever year to go check up to make sure that the cancer doesn’t come back. I would like to become a doctor in the future so that I can help other children with sicknesses.”

Meanwhile, Astrid Perez from Belize Rural Primary School and Jose Martinez from August Pine Ridge Roman Catholic School have been enrolled at Pallotti High school and Orange Walk Tech, respectively. Interestingly, they were both valedictorians of their respective primary schools.

Astrid Perez

Astrid Perez, Scholarship Recipient

“I am very proud of myself and so this scholarship will help my parents with my studies. So they can give me my four years of studies and so I can go to the university and I hope to become a doctor and get a scholarship to go to Cuba cause that’s the most thing I want to be.”

Jose Martinez, Scholarship Recipient

“You need to work hard, study and try your best in what you can do and always trying, you can believe in yourself and you can get what you get.”

Jose Martinez

Reporter

“It seems to have paid off. You are the recipient of the Courts’ Dare to Dream Scholarship. How did this make you and your family feel and how will this assist your family?”

Jose Martinez

“It makes my family happy and I feel happy too because I thank Courts for helping me and having interest in the Belizeans to help them and have a future for them.”

Duane Moody for News Five.