QC NY Alumni Assoc. to host Student Conference here next week

Feb 01, 2018 News

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A diverse team of local and diasporic Queen’s College of Guyana alumni and friends, has been assembled to lead workshops and other activities during the upcoming conference with the students at the Thomas Lands, Georgetown school.
The student conference will be held on February 8th and 9th, 2018.
Referred to as QCSC and being hosted for the fourth consecutive academic year by the Queen’s College of Guyana Alumni Association (NY) Inc. (“QCAANY”), the two-day program is designed to help support the development of academic and social skills necessary to be successful after graduation. To this end, the QCSC exposes approximately two-hundred students to life management skills and non-traditional careers.
Queen’s College students will be joined in this endeavor by students from ten other participating secondary schools: Central High, Bishops’ High, Tutorial High, Christ Church, North Georgetown, Brickdam High, Annandale Secondary, West Demerara Secondary, Richard Ishmael Secondary, and St. Rose’s High Schools.
On the conference’s opening day, February 8th, students will enjoy two sessions of workshops. Each session is made up of eleven concurrent workshops on five tracks: Leadership; Life After Secondary School; Life Management Skills; Technology; and Creative & Media Arts. This year’s lineup is impressive. Some of the presentations include the history of Guyanese women in the creative arts, technological advances in broadcast journalism, entrepreneurship, college readiness, servant leadership and civic engagement, photography, goal setting and the importance of mindset.
The first day ends with an ice-cream social, games and organized sports that are intended to foster camaraderie among students from the various schools.
On the second and final day, Friday, February 9th, teams of students will be engaged in an innovation challenge that encourages them to develop solutions to improve various aspects of their school communities. The teams will be mentored by volunteers from the business community. The innovation challenge will be followed by a career exploration fair. Fair exhibitors will include local professionals, companies, institutions, corporations, and small business enterprises and they will provide students with information about careers opportunities in their respective fields.
The QC volunteers are representative of the alumni body from as early as the 1950s to present day. They are Ms. Grace Ali, Dr. Glendon Archer, Ms. Jamella Chesney, Dr. Marlon Hestick, Mr. Elson Low, Ms. Colleen Patterson, Mr. Enrico Woolford, and Dr. Eton Wilson, among many others.
Very ably assisting the alumni volunteers will be two groups of Queen’s College student leaders who enthusiastically answered the call to participate. Miss Vishani Ragobeer and Miss Shafeena Milton will draw from their experience as Youth Ambassadors as they speak on the fulfilling basis for civic engagement, advocacy and volunteerism.
The “Lictor Live” organization will be represented by Wei Jun Wong and Nathan Chinapen, who will present on the art of photography. “Lictor Live” was the winner of the 2015 innovation challenge.
In welcoming the two student groups to the fold, Ms. Karen Wharton, President of QCAANY, acknowledged that the students’ inclusion is a natural outcome of the student conferences. “We want our students to make self-empowering choices,” she said. “We are over the moon to see students whom we met during our first QCSC in 2014 return as leaders of their school community.”
Joining Ms. Wharton on this year’s planning team are US-based alumni Dr. Michelle Mickle Foster, Ms. Shindy Johnson, and Ms. Saran Nurse; Ms. Ede Tyrell, QCAANY representative and alumna in Georgetown; and Ms. Treisha Simon, Queen’s College teacher.
Dr. Foster, the conference chairperson, noted that she’s looking forward to the positive energy that will erupt when seasoned professionals, from Guyana and the diaspora, stir up the giftedness within the youth at the conference. “Seeds will be planted and visions for the future will emerge at this highly anticipated event,” she continued.
The Chairman of the QC Board of Governors and former President of QCAANY, Mr. Alfred Granger, welcomes the conference on behalf of the Board of Governors. “I have great pleasure in once again welcoming the Student Conference,” he remarked, adding that QCSC is a significant event on the school’s calendar and a “critical part of our students’ development.”
This year’s conference is being held in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Associated costs are being met by members and supporters of QCAANY, with corporate sponsorships from Metallica Commodities Corp, Camex Limited, Banks DIH, and Maggie’s Snackette, and Noble House Seafoods.
QCAANY was formed on August 21, 1991. The NY-based non-profit’s stated purposes include the provision of financial and other forms of material assistance to the school and to associate with any non-profit organization involved in assisting Guyanese in Guyana and elsewhere. To learn more, interested persons can email QCAANY at [email protected] and visit the organization on the web at www.qcguyanaalumny.org

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