Japan offers thirteen scholarships to Belizeans

You may have heard of JICA, it is the cooperation arm of the Japanese Government and today the agency announced it was awarding thirteen scholarships to Belizeans, four of which were announced today. Present in Belize since the year 2000 with offices in over one hundred countries, JICA prides itself as an organisation that builds goodwill between the people of Japan and developing countries, including Belize. Takishita Yoshinobu, representative of JICA, was present at City Hall this morning for the awarding of the scholarships.

Takishita Yoshinobu, Resident Representative, JICA
“The other programmes in Belize; our programmes in Belize is JICA training programmes to send Belizeans for training in Japan. In each year we arrange about five hundred training courses in Japan and accept thirty thousand people from the hundred developing countries. From Belize we have eleven courses. For this fiscal year, we arrange eleven courses for thirteen participants. On Friday this week, two—the first group in this fiscal year—will depart from Belize.”

“This year, JICA headquarter offered eleven courses for thirteen participants and general information for these courses come from JICA headquarter through my office, and then given to Ministry of Foreign Affairs then Ministry of Foreign Affairs start, finding the candidates. Most of the courses are shorter courses, like several months, and longest courses, two years. We already have selected candidate for two years. This is actually post graduate research course.”

According to the JICA representative, the two-year scholarship recipient is Leidi Gricel Urbina and the others are Robert Allen, city engineer for the Belize City Council; Jason Williams from the Dangriga Town Council, and Mariene Rivas. Both Allen and Williams are scheduled to leave for Japan on Friday while the others will take up the offer at a later date.