PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — Member of Parliament Angelique Romou and the St. Martin Promoting Young Ambassadors Foundation, with their mission of highlighting and promoting the positive developments of our youngsters have embarked on a new initiative for graduating students of the primary and secondary schools.
The Annual A.R. Scholar Athlete Award is to recognize our well-rounded graduating students who are able to compete athletically and excel in school, striking that perfect balance. This initiative stems from the current monthly Excellence Awards Program that the foundation carries out in collaboration with MP Romou where young artists and athletes are recognized each month of the school year as Youth of Excellence. MP Romou explained the reasoning behind the initiative saying “Often, we do not recognize and encourage enough our students that are gifted, disciplined and multi-talented in both academics and sports who are able to strike that balance. This is quite unfortunate; however, with this initiative, we are turning that around.
Together with the assistance of the schools, youngsters were nominated by the school after reviewing the criteria set by the SMPYA foundation. In addition to receiving the award, the recipients also received donations towards their future educational expenses, $500 for the primary school graduate and $1000 for the secondary school graduate”.
“We approached several businesses on the island to assist in providing the award recipients with donations towards their education. We are so grateful to all the businesses that responded to our plea and donated to further support these talented youngsters” MP Romou stated. These businesses are The Windward Islands bank, St. Maarten Concrete, Telem Group of Companies and MotorWorld.
The A.R. Scholar Athlete Award was successfully kicked off in June 2022 where 5 of the 7 graduating youngsters were awarded, their Plaques at their graduation ceremonies. Those students awarded were Andy Xie Li (Seventh Day Adventist School), Titus Richardson Boasman (Hillside Christian School), Michael Palmer (SMVTS), Devon Skeete (MPC VWO) and Shanique Elizee (MPC HAVO). The students Jason Rombley (Oranje School) and Carlos Junior Almonte (Ruby Labega School) are still to collect their awards.
For a quick insight into these talented youngsters –
Jason Rombley performs well in all Educational Areas (especially Mathematics) and plays soccer for the Belvedere Football Club.
Carlos Junior Almonte is an exceptional student and has an outstanding performance in sports. His Athletic ability assisted the Ruby Labega Primary School to achieve 1st Place in the Division of Public Education Sports day.
Andy Xie Li is a young man that has created ways for him to learn, especially the English language. One of his very excellent methods is art which helps him translate from Chinese to English. He is a model student and a gifted artist.
Titus Richardson Boasman is a quiet, resourceful, and helpful 12-year-old boy. Titus is constantly looking for ways to improve his skills; whether it be academically or physically. Titus enjoys competing and showing his strengths on the track and field weekly. Titus will be representing his country in two upcoming track and field competitions in Curacao and Nevis respectively.
Michael Palmer performed very well on his 4th form exams, and he is also overall a great athlete. His main area however is in the sport of Cricket. Michael is not only a great student in his academics and a talented athlete, but he is also a very respectable young man. He exhibits great leadership qualities as a young individual and is an example for many young men. Michael is currently playing for the Leeward Islands Cricket Board (LICB) U17 where they went to Trinidad and Tobago to play and he had a tremendous score of 88 and with those runs and victory, he became man of the match and he has recently been selected to play for the Leeward islands U19.
Devon is an aspiring Aviation Manager with a passion for the art of music, namely Steelpan. Apart from his music career, Devon excels academically and runs a successful business called Level Up Tutoring, in which he tutors youngsters between the ages of 11-19 for the subjects Mathematics, Business Administration, Economics, French and Spanish.
Shanique is an aspiring lawyer with a passion for the art form drumming. Her love for drumming stems from her time at the Symphonic Music School. Shanique’s work ethic is one of her greatest assets. She is highly motivated and takes initiative. She takes direction and feedback well, a true team player and most admirable is Shanique’s ability to keep motivating herself. A full profile of each award recipient can be found on the Facebook and Instagram page of MP Angelique Romou.
MP Romou and the SMPYA Foundation congratulates all the awardees once again and would like to thank all the schools that put forth nominees and all the businesses that donated to this worthy cause. For 2023, the foundation hopes to have a full slate of 17 award recipients and to form more strategic partnerships with the local business community to continue highlighting, stimulating and promoting our young intelligent and talented students.
