GHS comes up on top in 2018 RBC Young Leaders

The Girls’ High School has held on to the top spot of the RBC Young Leaders programme for a second consecutive year.

The all-girl institution was presented with the Award of Distinction at Wednesday’s awards ceremony. The 2018 RBC Young Leaders programme was held under the theme, “I am WE: Leading change in our community”.

And under the sub theme, “Acknowledging yesterday, changing today, bettering tomorrow,” the GHS Young Leaders carried out several projects with the hope that they leave a lasting impact on their communities.

“We realised that the main problem with leading change is that people tend to do it once and forget about it but it doesn’t create sustainable, permanent, impactful change,” said coordinating teacher, Shanel Samuel-Lewis.

Some of the activities carried out by the GHS Young Leaders included hosting domestic violence seminars, creating a fund called “Angels of Change” to be donated to the Salvation Army Children’s Home to cover medical expenses, painting murals at the airport in Bequia to enhance the physical environment, establishing a relationship between the School for Special Needs in Bequia and a supermarket to provide food for a term to the students.

RBC/RBTT Managing Director for the Eastern Caribbean, Isaac Solomon presents trophy to representatiives from the GHS Young Leaders.

The young leaders also visited and made donations to the Lewis Punnett Home and installed picnic benches at the Girls’ High School to solve the issue of not having enough designated eating areas.

Samuel-Lewis said that she was happy that judges saw that the projects were meaningful and did create a change.

And the president of this year’s winning young leaders, Divya Singh said that she was “extremely satisfied because it was a lot of work, a lot of hours and a lot of sacrifice”.

The young leaders of the St Joseph’s Convent Kingstown came in second and were presented with the Award of Excellence while the Bishops College Kingstown and Thomas Saunders Secondary School tied for third place and were presented with the Award of Merit.

The feature address at Wednesday’s ceremony was delivered by nephrologist, Dr Twanna Browne-Caesar.

Browne-Caesar, who was a past young leader, expressed hope that this year’s young leaders have recognised their abilities and talents through the execution of their various projects and realised the benefits of teamwork.

The nephrologist said that there was a lack of leadership in various areas of society and called on young leaders to embrace their potential of becoming exceptional leaders.

“The time is now for our next generation to rise up and exercise their influence in leading change in a very meaningful and sustainable way. Your contributions are too precious to be lost. We need to continually effect positive change in not only your communities, but also our country,” she said.

Country Manager of RBTT Bank Ltd, Fleur Nichols and senior education officer for secondary schools, Kay Martin-Jack also echoed similar sentiments in their remarks.

The theme for next year’s RBC Young Leaders programme is “I am WE: Embracing change in a digital environment”.