A former student of Anna Regina Secondary School yesterday became the fifteenth recipient of the Anne Blue Scholarship Award which honours academic as well as extra-curriculum activities.

At a simple handing over ceremony held at the National Centre for Resource Development (NCERD), the recipient Shefali Seecharran extended thanks to Anne Blue’s family, her mother and father and teachers saying that she felt “extremely honoured” to be the recipient of the award.

A cheque along with a plaque was presented to Seecharran by Magda Pollard who is the Secretary of the Anne Blue Scholarship Fund. The plaque bears the name of the previous recipients along with the picture of the current recipient and Anne Blue’s pictures. It is given to the school to be hung and serves as encouragement to other students.

Pollard congratulated Seecharran and wished her the best in her life but urged the gathering of teachers and students in the auditorium of NCERD “to shoulder the responsibility we have to work and live in a society which is healthy both physically and morally”.

Meanwhile, Assistant Chief Education Officer Melcita Bovell said that applications to the fund were sent out to six education district with 32 applicants replying. To qualify for the scholarship students had to have been successful at the CSEC examination, be 16 years six months at the time of writing the examination and have made overall contribution to their school such as being active in clubs, debates and student government.

Seecharran qualified for the award out of the other applicants with some 95 points. She wrote 16 subjects at the last CSEC examinations and gained nine grade ones with five distinctions, six grade twos and one grade three. She also was a part of the debate team, class monitor and prefect and athlete while at Anna Regina Secondary. She did community work and was a peer educator in her community as well.

Seecharran is now at Queen’s College pursuing her CAPE studies, a move which was commended by Pollard.

The Anne Blue Scholarship Fund has been working tirelessly to award students with scholarships since 1994. The monetary award amounts to $250,000 for a six-year period. Once selected, the recipient receives $20,000 and in the beginning of the second year another $30,000 is handed over. The following years the recipient receives $50,000 at the beginning of the year.

In order to retain the monies, the awardee must either pursue two years of the Sixth Form Programme and then enter the University of Guyana or enter the university after writing CSEC.

The Anne Blue Scholarship was founded by the parents of Anne Blue who was born at the Georgetown Hospital on June 11, 1956. Her early years of schooling were completed in Guyana and then she moved to England where she studied nursing and later went to New York where she studied law at the Hofstra University Law Division.

Blue had an outstanding educational background and was also an outstanding community leader as well as a teacher and real estate broker. Her diverse interests ranged from travelling to pet rearing. She died on July 5, 1993.