Poverty forced Joshua Edwards to give up Cricket

Nov 17, 2020 Sports

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Sells Pizzas to pay his UG tuition fees

By Sean Devers

Kaieteur News – Joshua David Edwards was a promising all-rounder who was good enough to be invited to the St Lucia U-15 trials but he was forced to give up Cricket because he had to choose between School and Sports due his dire financial situation.
“In Cricket in Saint Lucia, the Grassroots Cricket Programme was a means of attempting to pursue my passion for cricket. Secondary School Under-15 and Under-19 tournaments were also prevalent so that aided the cricket pursuit,” informed Joshua who was member of the John Eugene’s Basic and Technical Cricket Academy.
Joshua, now 22, moved to Guyana where his parents were born, two years ago and lives with his uncle and his family in Grove, East Bank Demerara.
This is his inspiring story of how he started selling Pizzas, (made by his mother) to pay his tuition fees at the University of Guyana (UG).
Joshua (popularly known as the Pizza Boy) is a final year LAW student at UG and despite the pandemic, he was still able to get his second-year paid off and he is now striving to finish pay the final year.
“My goal is to become a doctor of the law. I desire to get my Doctorate in Criminology so this is just the beginning for me. After UG is law school but I would also like to attain my Master’s in the legal field and finally, a Doctorate in Criminology. With that, I seek to aid in law reforms by changing some of the actions deemed criminal, the repercussions for such actions, and also criminalize some actions.

Law has been my passion for as long as I can remember. It is the last thing I think of when I go to bed and the first thing on my mind when I wake up. I dream about it. I live it. I love it. There is no greater feeling than having dignitaries agree with your argument because you have persuaded a judge using an undeniable argument with a degree of excellence that is hinged upon the preparation and studies you have done,” disclosed Joshua.
Joshua recently won a lap top computer and $700,000 for his winning essay in the Pastor Amanda Williams Educational Scholarship contest.
“I found out about the Scholarship fund from four different people. The last person was the head Pastor (Bishop Murvel) of Cover the Children Ministries in Agricola. When they found out my purpose for selling pizza they encouraged me to apply for the scholarship. One of the criteria for applying was an essay stating why you believe you should attain the scholarship as well as financial struggles.
I was overwhelmed to know I was awarded. I couldn’t believe it. It took out a large sum of money off my fees and I thank them for that,” Joshua said.
Joshua was born on November 28, 1997 in the 238 Square Mile Island of Saint Lucia to Aneurin Edwards and Wendy Edwards and has three siblings; a brother and two sisters.
Joshua grew up in what he described as abstract poverty in St Lucia and things did not change much for him when he came to Guyana as a 20-year-old having to adjust to a different Culture.
Guyana and Saint Lucia are very different. Life is so different it took him a while to adapt.
“The simplest thing that I would believe is the way to go about accomplishing a task would not be the way here in Guyana. Saint Lucia is very mountainous but where the populace of Guyana is located is largely flat land.
Sometimes I feel like I pass Saint Lucia’s entire population (Approximately 182,000) whilst walking through Guyana’s capital.
The way of life, the food, the building structures, the colours of houses, the alignment of the houses, everything is just different. I am just surprised at how two ecologies from the same region are so diverse. I was like a child again learning everything over.
A large part of adaptation took place because of my class and school mates. They introduced me to a lot of Guyana’s history, geography, political life as well as socioeconomic well-being of the middle class. I was privileged to meet some of the best characters who made knowing Guyana both fun and educational all at once. The adaptation process is still shaping my mind set and broadening my horizons but I still believe I have some way to go.

Guyana has the most hospitable people you will ever find. From my classmates at UG (Class of 2021) to the people I have encountered in my short time here, 99% of them have shown me a dimension of help that I could not believe was present. Now, as I sell pizza, it is even more glaring the extent people would go to just to help,” Joshua recounted.
“It’s one thing to be poor but it is another thing to know you are poor because it is so glaring. I remember having one pair of shoes for school, church and cricket.
It took a couple of years before I could get a shoe that was not all black because the school demanded all black shoes. I began to indoctrinate myself that textbooks were not for me because I could not afford them. If my elder siblings didn’t already possess the books, I did not see myself as a candidate to receive those books. I would come to class with the oldest editions of the textbooks required because it has been passed down from generation to generation.
I loved cricket but could not sharpen my abilities because of the lack of equipment. I have NEVER… EVER… in my life… from preschool until now… paid my fees before a semester began. It has never happened.
It is something that actually I have become accustomed to. But I do know this will not last forever. One day my fees will be paid before classes start,” noted Joshua whose favourite cricketer is Virat Kholi because of his class, power, elegance, charisma, passion, and excellence and the way he takes every game seriously.
“My biggest challenge was simply a lack of resources. From very young I desired to create global and trans-generational change by giving to someone who needs it. However, it was halted by the current state of affairs. I never allowed that dream to die.

I told myself, “Joshua, where there is a will, there is a way.” and also “Where there is a wall, there is a way.” Lack of money reverberating into a lack of resources. It was just horrible.
The state of my house did not shape the state of our home. Yes, there were scars. But a family who prays together stays together and my parents laboured with us to ensure that there was always something for dinner and to give us the best life they could.
There will always be times when you, as a child, would believe that they can and should do better. When you become a man, you put away childish things. Every one of us as children has a dimension of academic prowess that even our colleagues admire. And our lifestyle never got inside of us. We lived in poverty but we never allowed poverty to live in us. Therefore, we worked together to see our lives become better day by day, and the comforting words of our parents that it will not be like this forever resound in our minds till today,” Joshua posited.
Primary school greeted him with acquiring creative ways to get the work done. Not because he would be scolded if I didn’t (Because many times it didn’t come down to that, the teachers understood the situation) but because the passion to learn, grow and develop educationally was present. It was the catalyst for a better tomorrow.
“I remember during sixth form, my sister borrowed a tablet for me and I took pictures of the Caribbean Studies text which took about one and a half hours.

It was a joy to do knowing that I could now follow in class whilst the teacher is speaking, or even be a voluntary reader without disturbing my neighbour. These things may seem small, but to the one who never had, it is huge,” Joshua remembered with a gleam in his eyes.
He wrote 9 CSEC subjects and got all nine. I got 5 ones (3 all A’s) a two and 3 Threes.
To get into UG, Joshua did an online application in March of 2018 and sent in his documents on March 31. His cousins; whom he had never seen before, helped in ensuring that UG got the documents and all the criteria were met.
“I started Wendy’s Pizza Parlour in February of 2020. It was the product of me getting a grade ‘A’ in an exam that I was told that I could not write.
When I was near barred from writing this exam I said this ends here. That was my breaking point. I told myself I didn’t come for an easy road. I came to finish, and finish I will.
Too many people are depending on me to become a lawyer. Only God knows who will need my help in the future. I must do it for their sake. That was and still is the catalyst for Wendy’s Pizza Parlour here in Guyana,” declared Joshua.
“The pizza business benefitted me in more ways than one. The seemingly simplest way was the fact I could get bus money to go to UG and back. I did not have that. I would sometimes have to ask one of my uncles for some money just to go to UG and then not know how I am coming back home.
Food is another benefit. There were days I was on campus, no one knows, the entire day I am without nothing to eat. I said God you are faithful. Some days I had no money to take a car to go into my street and I would walk and save the little I had for next day’s transportation to UG,” Joshua stated.
“Wendy’s Pizza Parlour solved these things for me. I could now help out people and not only myself by using this business to be a blessing to others also.”
“If I had one wish, it would be for everyone to fulfil their purpose in life. One person fulfilling purpose already helps an immeasurable amount of people so could you imagine 7.8 billion people doing what they are called to do? The world would surely be a better place.
My most memorable moment is interchangeably, when I got the Special Award for LAW in sixth form and me being accepted into UG. Those were feelings I would like to have all the days of my life. One brings about a joy for a job well done and the other notes a joy for great things are to come. Both are still appreciable.
My goal is to have Wendy’s Pizza Parlour as a global enterprise. I would also like to write books. I want to become a Prime Minister. Not just for the title, but to make an impact and etch a country’s name into the scrolls of history that this country solved this global problem and henceforth made the world a better place.” The young man continued.
“My message to young people is this, “Get it done”, “You can do it”. There are talents inside of you which are yearning to find expression.
Hidden in some young person may be the engineer to build skyscrapers in Guyana or tunnels underground. How you start doesn’t have to be how you finish. Go back to the dreams you had as a child. Do not allow life to cheat you of your greatness. Do what you love to do. Pursue that dream. Push for a better tomorrow. DON’T GIVE UP! Your impact will be noted one day.
Where you come from does have an impact on who you are. The beauty of life, however, is that your mind is the breeding ground for external influence and therefore, you can decide if this background will have an impact on your life or not.”

 

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