St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ newest scholar, Kaia Kydd, has joined the regional Pearl Allison Lake Scholarship Fund, while inaugural recipient Rayshawn Charles secured his second-year renewal.
The milestones were marked last Tuesday during a hybrid regional ceremony broadcast live from the Bay Gardens Hotel in Saint Lucia, where awardees and their parents across the five Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL) member states joined virtually from their local National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC) offices.
The multi-year initiative honors Pearl Allison Lake, a St. Lucian official who served as the Human Resources/Administrative Officer for the ECTEL regional directorate for 20 years until her death in June 2024.
The program originally selected its first cohort in September 2025, drawing 41 applications across ECTEL’s five Contracting States: St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia. The fund eases the financial strain on families—covering textbooks, uniforms, and transportation—by providing EC$1,500 in annual support to each selected student.
In order to receive the scholarship, eligible students transitioning from primary to secondary school submitted an essay alongside a Referee Form completed by their primary school staff.
Selection is strictly based on financial need, academic performance, leadership, character, and integrity.
Speaking at the presentation ceremony, Managing Director of ECTEL, David Cox, reflected on the selflessness that defined Lake’s life, noting that her entire existence was about service to others.
“We live today in the era of self. You can see this fixation, this fascination with self everywhere in the society that you look. It’s on our phones, it’s on our screens, it’s in our personal conversations.”
Yet, Cox explained that Lake carried on a proud St. Lucian tradition of regional service, a cultural quality that is shared with many Caribbean countries.
“It is not unique to her, but a quality that is actually very true of the Lake family…”
Cox further stated that a life built on service is how one achieves true immortality, noting that Lake’s memory will remain alive well beyond her death.
“…Her life was about service with other people, and so I encourage you in your own lives not to think about self, not to put yourself first, but to think how you too can follow in Pearl’s footsteps and give service to others…”
Providing additional details on Lake’s legacy and the fund’s deployment, ECTEL’s Director of Economics and Finance, Cheryl Hector Fontenelle, said that the word “service” is going to show up over and over because, as was indicated, service is who she was.
“She was also a very funny and very compassionate person…one of the things I appreciated the most because it was the complete polar opposite to me, if you ever needed a gift for somebody, Pearl always had the perfect thing, and oftentimes I mean she had it at her house.”
Fontenelle noted that Lake viewed education as something deeply important in her own life, which is why the directorate determined that a multi-year scholarship fund was an excellent way to celebrate and preserve her legacy.