Guyanese student among eight honoured by New York Times

One is a superintendent’s son who used to hold his father’s toolbox on the job and may become an electrical engineer. Another is the daughter of an unemployed mother who has moved eight times in the past three years and could achieve her goal of building homes for the poor in foreign countries. A third is the youngest member of a seven-person family that lives together in a small, one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx; he might end up as a mechanical engineering student at Princeton University.

The gap between the present tense (reality’s tense) and the future conditional (where dreams and aspirations reside) is usually a wide one, traditionally bridged by sweat or perseverance or an optimistic attitude or mere good luck. Sometimes, though, it takes a little more than these, a little extra push, to make it from the present to the future; and that is why these three young students — Guillermo Malena, Tami Forrester and Syed Habib, all 17 — were awarded money last week by The New York Times to help them attend the college of their choice.

They were among a total of eight high school seniors in New York, chosen from an applicant pool of hundreds, to receive four-year college scholarships, as well as summer jobs at The Times, introductions to various cultural events in the city and mentoring to help them navigate the often-difficult transition from their rocky homes and high schools to collegiate academic life.

The Times Scholars programme, established in 1998, has now helped more than 200 promising, financially-challenged students. It is supported mostly by The New York Times Company Foundation and by annual donations from various readers of The Times.

This year, the programme received a generous bequest from the estate of Dr Muriel (Miki) Grubel to pursue its stated mission: finding collegebound seniors in New York and recognising them for their academic accomplishments, their community involvement, and their determination in overcoming economic adversity.

Dextina Booker, who now attends the Secondary School for Law in Brooklyn, spent part of her childhood in her native country, Guyana, where she remembers “being barefoot a lot of the time.” At age 11, she and her mother, Shellon; her older brother, Dexter; and her younger sister, Destiny, moved to Brooklyn, where they changed apartments several times because they did not have enough money for rent, and where they eventually faced eviction. Then, in the 10th grade, Booker took a chemistry class that changed her life. She said she told her teacher, Jenny Barrett, “I just want to be great,” and Barrett answered that one definition of greatness was touching other people’s lives. Now, Booker says, she wants to be a chemistry teacher herself. “There’s no sense sitting down on your knowledge,” she insisted, “and keeping it to yourself.”

Over the years, Times scholars have overcome an astonishing list of obstacles, from (rough neighbourhoods, poorly-equipped schools, family drug use) to achieve an equally astonishing list of accomplishments.