Three Vincentian lasses are making the best of their adopted homeland and are ensuring that they don’t stray from their roots.

The youngsters, Swinka, Tonya and Portia Richards are originally from the town of Layou. {{more}}

They left here ten years ago to join their mother in Brooklyn, New York. There they completed the kindred circle with twin sisters Kianna and Kabrina.

The trio of siblings returns to Brooklyn tomorrow after one week on their birth land.

The girls have grown to appreciate the changes on this country’s landscape, and they took advantage of tropical climate to grove to Caribbean beat. Trips to sights and attractions were included in the schedule by the holiday-makers. One to the Falls of Baleine proved to be adventurous.

But life is hardly all play for these young ladies, Swinka is doing her Master’s in Business Administration, with a concentration on Finance. And the sunshine served to strengthen her mental faculties to absorb further instruction.

She has adapted to what life has to offer, and follows the family pattern of making the best of opportunities to advance.

Swinka, a Third Form Bishop’s College Kingstown student when she left here was impressed with the warm welcome she and her sisters received in her hometown.

She was similarly overwhelmed with the “developments, especially with housing and the designs.”

Her advice to Vincentians in New York, other cities, or anywhere for that matter, is to “take advantage of the opportunities at hand.”

Her strategy for coping with conditions in her adopted land is “learning what they want and never settle for average.”

“Strive for more,” Swinka stressed.

Tonya graduated from Cornell University last year May and plans to do Business Law. She left here while in Second Form at the Girls’ High School.

“I wanted to be a lawyer since I was young. I guess I am argumentative,” Tonya pointed out.

With her horizons having been broadened, Tonya is taking her steps to progress in a systematic manner and may one day be called to the Vincentian Bar.

Portia was a Grade Four student at the Roman Catholic School when she left here. She had to return to college, hence the brevity of the sojourn at home. But she had the solidarity of her sisters and they stretched the week’s itinerary to the extreme.