Former Taiwan Scholarship recipient now Author

AFESHA SIMMONS, who pursued studies in Global Financial Management in Taiwan through a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Scholarship in 2019, has graduated university and is also a published author of three books.

Simmons donated her books to the National Public Library, on Monday, August, 25, 2025. She told SEARCHLIGHT that this project started quite spontaneously, and because she has a passion working with children, she thought the best way to do that would be to write a book.

“And so my first one, which is ‘St Vincent through the Eyes of Grace,’ was written last year October, and it was for the purpose of having a kids’ reading…” she said, adding that the reading was done for independence to celebrate her own way of creating a bridge for people in Taiwan to know about St Vincent and the Grenadines’ independence and how it came about.

As time went on, Simmons met many people in Taiwan and wanted to expand the project by encompassing as many countries as she possibly could.

“And so then the second one that I did was ‘Back from Belize with Grace’, which is the one about Belize, and then the third one was about Saint Lucia,” she said. All three books mainly cover the culture of these different countries.

Simmons said the idea of writing these books was sparked by curiosity that children, and others in Taiwan would have about where she’s from.

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