RVA secures funding for more scholarships for Vincy students
After graduating in 2019 from the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community, where he studied sociology and green engineering, Marvin Douglas, 21, of Chauncey, was not looking for “a normal job where you had to be in an office all day”.
A friend told him about Richmond Vale Academy (RVA), and it was the first time that he was hearing about “such a school” in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).
Douglas decided it was an opportunity to interact with people from different nationalities and cultures, right in SVG, as well as for him to travel.
He volunteered under RVA’s “Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder with The Poor” programme, which included three months of preparation at RVA, six months of teaching people in Belize to build home gardens, and one month of evaluation in SVG.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Douglas ended up spending eight months in Belize, where he and a team member, a French national, only completed six of the 15 gardens they had hoped to. However, his time in Auguacate, a Mayan village, was life-changing. Douglas and his French teammate were in charge of mobilising the village to be active in the fight against climate change and to foster greater cooperation among farmers.
“My knowledge grew much wider because I had an opportunity to be in a country that speaks several languages — English, Spanish, Garifuna, Mayan,” Douglas recalls.
“I was able to see that there is a lot to be learnt outside of St. Vincent; there is more knowledge to be grasped and understood. It helped me to open my mind to different things and digest reality because what we are accustomed to in SVG is different from what they could call ‘normal’ in Belize.”
It was the first time that Douglas was travelling outside of SVG and it was an eye-opener. “Even though we neglect foreign languages in school, somewhere in our lives we encounter it again and we regret not paying more attention.
That opportunity helped me to see that knowing another language is more beneficial to yourself and your future.”
But in a more immediate and tangible way, Douglas’ experience in Belize has helped him to land a job as a project leader at RVA. And, whereas in Belize he received a stipend sufficient to meet his living needs, he currently has a job.
