Former Sunshine Girl wants more scholarships for student athletes locally

Former national netballer, now a lecturer and sports director at Moneague College, Nicole Aiken-Pinnock, announced that she will be offering two scholarship opportunities.Speaking at the inaugural Frome Sports Awards at the Commingle Hotel in Savanna-la-Mar last Friday, the former Sunshine Girls captain, who admitted that scholarships helped her through school all the way to her master's degree, said it's only fair to give back as they are looking to build a culture for sports at Moneague College.

"We want to identify one or two student athletes from Frome and offer them a scholarship to come to Moneague College. The choice is right across the board, in whichever sport. Between the principal and the sports department, we are looking for two quality athletes to be part of our programme at Moneague. It's also an avenue for us to help these youngsters to continue to develop in our society because at the end of the day, they are the future of sports and our leaders in Jamaica," Pinnock said.

"Moneague College has started a scholarship programme in an effort to build a culture of sport at the institution. What I have been doing over the past three to four years is offering students scholarships. They come into the institution, participate in maybe two sports and we pay for your tuition, or boarding or a mixture of both," she added.

Norman Allen, principal of Frome Technical High School who is proud of what the institution has done for sports in the parish, and the country at large, promises that next year's awards will even be better as they are looking forward to having even more impact in sports.

"We have always had a rich sporting tradition which we are only looking to keep up by getting involved in all sports possible. Next year, we will have a court, courtesy of the MP [member of parliament] and will be looking to introduce basketball. We have seen where after just one year of playing female football, we have three girls sent off to trials for the national Under-15 team," Allen said.