9 August 2020 | Three Adventist students in Jamaica have been awarded internships with a United Nations office in the country after winning a development competition.

Shertonio Byfield, Navaida Green and Petrona Peart – all students at Adventist-owned Northern Caribbean University (NCU) – were part of a team named Reducing Inequalities in Education.

They competed in the Development Challenge Competition organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Multi-Country Office in Jamaica in collaboration with the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, on July 10, 2020.

According to a news report from the Inter-America Division of the Adventist Church, the competition featured responses from young people in Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean to the UNDP’S Special Human Development Report on COVID-19. The competition was focused on identifying appropriate development strategies for the region in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing the students, Denise Antonio, the UNDP Representative in Jamaica made closing remarks at the event saying: “You have taken inspiration from the UNDP Special Report on COVID-19 and have charted your own path that is appropriate to your priorities and contexts…UNDP gives you our word that we will stand with you as you push for policy and behavioral change.”

“We were delighted to hear the good news about the students and their project on reducing inequalities in education,” said Lincoln Edwards, president of NCU. “From its very inception over 113 years ago, it has been one of the missions of NCU to provide quality Christian-centered education to persons who would normally be excluded by traditional systems.”

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