How Tourism Minister Bartlett made a student forever grateful?

How a Tourism Minister made Treshorna Huei forever grateful?
Treshorna Huei, Jamaica
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The Jamaica Minister of Tourism Hon. Edmund Bartlett is a diplomat maneuvering the travel and tourism industry not only in Jamaica but in a world arena. He is also a tourism minister who made a young lady student by the name of Treshorna Huei forever grateful.

After Bartlett became Tourism Minister he placed Jamaica on the tourism map not only in North America and Europe, but also in Africa, the Middle East,ย  Nepal, Kazakhstan or Korea. Bartlett has a vision. When there is a problem he doesn’t run away or hide, he takes it on. With such a mindset and a hands-on approach, he converted his country from a place with serious security challenges into a country that is now leading the global Tourism Resilience Center.

Bartlett never forgets where he is from. Theย  St. James East Central district in Jamaica is closest to his heart and has benefited greatly under his leadership. When it comes to making a difference for his constituency, the minister has been there.

St. James is a suburban parish, located on the north-west end of the island of Jamaica. Its capital is Montego Bay. Montego Bay was officially named the second city of Jamaica, behind Kingston, in 1981, although Montego Bay became a city in 1980 through an act of the Jamaican Parliament.

Montego Bay is also the center of the Jamaica Travel and Tourism Industry, a world-class beach destination, home of many five star hotels and resorts like Jamaica’s Sandals brand known as Beaches ( beaches.com), and home of the largest international Airport in the country.

Treshorna Huei, a young lady fromย  St. James East Central district addressed Edmund Bartlett:

” Good morning Sir. Thanks again for your tremendous support throughout this journey. You gave me the key that opened the door to brand new opportunities and expand all possibilities.ย  On November 3, 2019, I will be graduating with first-class honors. I am forever grateful.”

After eTN saw a social media post on this note, eTurboNews contacted Edmund Bartlett and asked who Teshorna Huei is and why she wrote this.

As it has always been, the minister responded immediately. His humbled response received on WhatsApp said: “Ok she really is one of the many young people in my political constituency that I support through a special fund to further their education. I have had this program for 39 years and have supported thousands of poor and less fortunate children to achieve higher education.ย  I am proud of this project and will convert into a foundation shortly to ensure its perpetuity.”

Students ranging from early childhood to the tertiary level benefit from bursaries and scholarships from the program, as do teachers in the 14 primary schools in his constituency.

โ€œThis year we want to reach a goal of $15 million in terms of the value of the scholarships offering that we are making for the students of Eastern St James,โ€ Bartlett had outlined in July, when he was speaking at a well-supported fund-raising dinner at the Jewel Grande Montego Bay Resort & Spa in St James .

Bartlett noted that in the face of escalating tertiary tuition fees, it is becoming increasingly challenging to provide scholarships for that category of students.

โ€œThis year we are seeking to provide a program for a number of tertiary students, whose cost of education has skyrocketed in the last two years. And what we find now is we can hardly afford the medical students, and we can least afford the law students. So we are having to [restrict]… the disciplines that we support to… the social sciences and medicine and teaching,โ€ Bartlett expressed. โ€œBut we want to go beyond that and we want to move also in the technologies.โ€

Bartlett challenged guest speaker, Dr. Nigel Clarke, who is the Minister of finance and the public service, and member of Parliament for St Andrew Northwestern, to take a page out of his book and roll out similar educational programs in his constituency.

“In commending a program like this, as a young MP, I want to just say to you that my 40 years in politics has brought me no satisfaction to match, even remotely, the satisfaction that I get from seeing these young people graduating from colleges, universities, high schools and becoming professionals. That’s why I have been doing it now for 39 years,โ€ Bartlett declared.

He explained that he started a similar program as far back as 1980 when he was a Member of Parliament in East St Andrew. โ€œSo, when I came to St James in 1996/97, we continued the program,โ€ Bartlett said.

โ€œWe have touched the lives of more than 2,000 young people, who today are positioned in every single professional area across Jamaica and overseas, including a neurosurgeon [and] some lawyers. We go to every university and teacher’s college in Jamaica, and there are students from East Central St James who have been through this program.

โ€œThis program has become the standard, in fact, by which the unfortunate or the less fortunate brilliant young people of East Central St James have an opportunity to advance their education and I am proud of it,โ€ Minister Bartlett said.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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