Cel­e­brat­ed for their ex­cel­lence in ANSA McAL’s He­roes Foun­da­tion pro­gramme, 102 par­tic­i­pants yes­ter­day re­ceived cer­tifi­cates of par­tic­i­pa­tion as well as spe­cial awards as they com­plet­ed the three-year pro­gramme.

The pro­gramme, which fo­cus­es on self-de­vel­op­ment, saw stu­dents from six sec­ondary schools across the coun­try be­ing trained in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, en­er­gy, cli­mate change and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty as well as dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, ca­reer de­vel­op­ment and self-aware­ness.

The schools in­clud­ed Bel­mont Sec­ondary, Wood­brook Sec­ondary, Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary, Trin­i­ty Col­lege and South East Sec­ondary.

The foun­da­tion has been in ex­is­tence for the past 23 years and its spon­sors in­clude ANSA McAL, Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed, Sco­tia­bank and the Sco­tia­bank Foun­da­tion.

ANSA McAL’s head of mar­ket­ing and ex­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sarah In­gle­field who played a hands-on and key role in the pro­gramme, yes­ter­day en­cour­aged the stu­dents to fol­low their dreams.

In­gle­field said, “The sto­ries we tell our­selves mat­ter so make it your mis­sion to be very con­scious of that back­ground con­ver­sa­tion that you have run­ning at all times. So, I am urg­ing every­one and en­cour­ag­ing every­one to make your men­tal strength your mis­sion be­cause if you can mas­ter your mind all of your dreams are pos­si­ble.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the stu­dents, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said he plans to put the coun­try in a bet­ter place for the gen­er­a­tions to come. (See Page 7)

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy said the stu­dents had the abil­i­ty to bring about the change the na­tion needs.

Web­ster-Roy said, “I saw the change in the stu­dents. I saw the abil­i­ty to en­gage with not on­ly their peers but with the teach­ers and the com­mu­ni­ty. I saw the im­pact of your or­gan­i­sa­tion. To those who will be re­ceiv­ing your cer­tifi­cate to­day, your cer­tifi­cate is not just a sym­bol of your ac­com­plish­ment. It is al­so a promise. A promise that you are go­ing to make not to your­self but to your coun­try.

“In your cer­tifi­cates there’s a promise that you are go­ing to be the ones to go out there and do what is re­quired to be done to bring about the change that we all want to see. To­day, I salute all of you boys and girls who stayed the course, com­mit­ted your­selves and to­day will stand as a promise.”