16 more Vincentians graduate in Cuba

27.JUNE.08

Sixteen Cuban-trained Vincentian professionals are looking forward to putting their newly acquired skills at the disposal of their country after graduation exercises at various university centres dotted across the landscape of the Caribbean’s largest island nation.{{more}}

Among this group are six students who are virtual firsts in their fields. Kathy Badenock, Denis Byam, Carlton Daniel, Jomodean May, Joycita Stewart and Kevin Young are the first Vincentians to graduate from Cuba’s flagship International School of Physical Education and Sports, an institution founded only seven yeas ago as a brainchild of Cuba’s then president Fidel Castro.

The first two weeks of June saw these six Vincentian sportspersons successfully presenting their final year investigation projects to make them eligible for graduation in July. Their projects covered areas such as the former national cricketer Denis Byam’s “Proposals for physical therapy for fast bowlers…”, which examines the reasons West Indian fast bowlers suffer such rapid physical deterioration, to table tennis specialist Carlton Daniel’s “Improving techniques for coaching table tennis.” Their projects were defended in the presence of Ambassador Dexter Rose, who made the two-hour journey from Havana to Pinar del Rio especially for the occasion.

Also graduating from Cuban centres this year as medical doctors will be Ama Martin and Chevorne Adams, from the University of Pinar del Rio’s Medical Faculty, and Rosmond Adams from the Sancti Spiritus School of Medicine, after seven years of medical studies.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jose Davy, herself a 2005 graduate of the Cuban medical system, who returned in 2007 to pursue post-graduate studies in HIV and Infectious Diseases, is due to return home later this summer to further fortify our medical system.

SVG’s troupe of engineers will grow further with the addition of Calvert Adams who pursued Telecommunications; Neil Jack, Industrial Engineering; Morrison Creese, Electrical; Michael Yearwood and Zonnance Wilkes, Agronomy.

Shaverne Olliverre is the lone Sociology graduate this year from the University of Havana. All graduates are expected to return home by late July.

University study is offered to students from the Caribbean and around the world by the Cuban government free of cost. To date more than 150 Vincentians have graduated from Cuban universities since the first three: present Minister of Health Dr. Douglas Slater, Permanent Secretary/Economist Andreas Wickham and Agronomist Berwin King led the trend of Vincentians studying in Cuba in 1980.