Barbudan Student Gets Special Help

Details

Food & Drink

Friday, 21 January 2011 06:55

By press release

Barbudan Rodrick Beazer’s culinary dreams have been kept alive thanks to a timely intervention by the Antigua and Barbuda Development Bank.  The bank’s partnership with the Organization of American States’ Leo S Rowe Pan American Fund has made a US$15,000 loan possible.

The 60-year-old fund, named for pioneering Pan American Dr Leo Stanton Rowe, provides interest free loans to Caribbean and Latin American students pursuing studies or research at accredited US universities, deferring payment until after graduation, with the expectation that the student will return home and be of service to his/her country.

Without the fund, Beazer would not have been able to complete his BSc in Culinary Arts Management at the Art Institute of Atlanta in time for his March 2011 graduation. Critical as well is the CHTA Education Foundation which is also acting as Beazer’s loan guarantor.

Beazer, a two-time CHTAEF scholarship recipient in 2009 and 2010, found himself in need of assistance at the 11th hour, after one of his original funding sources fell through.

Ambassador Dame Deborah-Mae Lovell acted as fairy godmother, and it was she who initially brought the Fund to Beazer’s attention. Lovell, the country’s permanent representative to the OAS, is also the Fund’s chairperson, and she brokered the 2010 partnership deal between the OAS and the ABDB, paving the way for under-represented countries within the hemisphere to access opportunities for their youth.

In order to access loans available through the Fund, explained ABDB General Manager Donald Charles, “the student must provide a guarantee. ABDB provides such guarantee to the Fund provided it has in place suitable collateral locally to secure the guaranteed amount.”

Groundbreaking though the deal may be, this is not the ABDB’s first foray into the territory of student loans; it has been doing so since 1975. But when the OAS partnership was brought before the Board, Charles said, it was deemed “worthy” as it created a linkage between the ABDB and an esteemed international organisation, while guaranteeing opportunity for promising but cash-strapped students.

“Rodrick is the first applicant to have a loan approved under the scheme,” Charles said. “He is quite an acclaimed young chef who is destined for greatness.”

Beazer’s promise – his “skill, dedication and thirst for knowledge” – also prompted the CHTAEF, a non-profit organisation through which scholarships and special assistance has been given to hotel and tourism industry personnel since 1987, to make the rare move of backing his loan, something they do not normally do and are not likely to do again in the foreseeable future.

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Beazer, who has plied his cooking skills at the Beach House, Coco Point Lodge, and Lighthouse Bay Hotel, all on Antigua’s sister island – took up his studies in 2008 and is expected to complete a paid internship in the US before returning home. “My goal is to one day have my own casual dining restaurant in my home town,” he said. “In addition, I will work very closely with the key sectors within Antigua & Barbuda to help educate, train, mentor, and develop our brand.”

He is just the kind of student for whom the Rowe Fund is intended, and whom the ABDB is committed to helping. As Charles put it, “the bank envisages that these students (upon graduation) will contribute to the economic growth and development of the country either by bringing their knowledge and training to an existing business or by becoming entrepreneurs in setting up their own businesses thereby creating employment for themselves and others.”

An investment in them, therefore, is seen as an investment in the economic future of Antigua & Barbuda.

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