Latest update December 4th, 2024 2:40 AM
Church motivating Agricola youth to excel academically
Kaieteur News – Rewarding success is one of the ways that the Elim Pentecostal Church at Agricola, East Bank Demerara has been motivating the youth of its community to excel academically and become responsible members of society.
The four awardees posing with their certificates
The church has been doing this for nine years now, by awarding top National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) performers from Agricola every year.
Each of the awardees would be given a monetary reward and a certificate of excellence.
Speaking with Kaieteur News, Collin Klass, one of the main principals behind this initiative said, “We do this as a form of motivation for the children, motivating them to become successful academically. We give them a monetary reward to help buy books for school or whatever they might need to make their academic journey a success”.
While there are some middle class families living in Agricola, there are others who are impoverished. This results in a number of school dropouts and low performance in schools. However, the Elim Pentecostal church believes if these students are rewarded for putting their best foot forward then they will be motivated to stay in school and to work harder to attain higher grades.
According to Klass since the church started the award NGSA students nine years ago, there has been lots of success stories.
Not only has there been better performance at the exams but some students who received awards went on to become doctors.
“Yes we have doctors, one of them is a dentist I believe”, Klass said.
Last year the church faced a major setback after one of the sponsors of its annual award ceremony retired.
New sponsor for the church’s annual award ceremony, LaTasha Carpenter (centre), flanked by the pastor (extreme left) and other church members.
“We had someone sponsoring the awards for a long time but that individual has retired and is no longer able to continue supporting the initiative”.
Despite the setback, the church went ahead with its plans by faith and according to Klass God provided another sponsor who pledged to continue supporting the initiative of motivating the children of Agricola.
A member of the TeDivina group in Maryland Florida, USA, LaTasha Carpenter reportedly visited the church to speak on the benefits of herbal tea and after learning about the church’s annual award ceremony, she volunteered to become its main sponsor.
With her coming onboard. the church was able to keep its annual initiative alive and was able to reward four students last year.
Proud of their awards were Lidya Joseph who secured a place at St Joseph High School with 496 marks, Xavier Scott and Chavez Alphanso both Tutorial High School Students with 441 and 428 marks respective and Nikesha Fyffe who secured a spot at the Ascension Secondary School with 331 marks.
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