Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 30, 2011 News
In an era when too many youths are preoccupied with the Gaza and Gully culture, there are thankfully
still quite a few for whom attaining a good education and making good career choices are their major preoccupations.
At the age of twenty-four, Deon Anderson has already graduated from the Universidad De Camaguey in Cuba as a Chemical Engineer. He is currently employed with the Guyana Water Incorporated. But that career was never Deon’s first choice.
“Even just before writing CXC I wasn’t even certain of what I wanted to become, because to tell you the truth- from my heart, I love teaching, but sadly being a teacher, economically is not one of the best careers to have.”
So Deon opted to put ‘teaching on the back burner” because of his conviction that he could never enjoy the sort of life he aspired to on a teacher’s wages.
But as an engineer, Deon thinks that he can still enjoy the best of both worlds, as he is prepared to teach youths like himself who are interested, the rudiments of that particular career.
Deon is also a skilled and ‘passionate’ musician, who at one time had even considered taking up the art as a career. He never did though, but is currently engaged in passing on his skill to the ‘younger ones.’
Our youthful role model grew up in the Half Mile Wismar area with his mother, foster father and two other siblings.
He is the middle child. He says that he has very little memory of his biological father who died when he was merely two years old.
But Deon said that he was fortunate and blessed to have a “stepfather who was very supportive” and who always treated him as his own.
He described his formative years as quite challenging. His family has always been involved in the business of selling fish, and there were times when as a youngster, he questioned whether that economic activity could maintain them on a long term basis.
But it has, and the business has even grown much bigger and better from the days when Deon himself used to be selling from a go cart.
“While at school, in the mornings my job was to take out the scales and so on and pack out the fish, and my brother would actually fetch the fish.
“Then on weekends, I would go around with my parents and sell (fish).”
Despite his extra curricular activities Deon excelled at school, and gained a place at the Mackenzie High School after he wrote the common entrance examinations. He was the top CXC student of the school in 2003.
He later went on to Queens College to study for his Advanced levels in Chemistry as that subject was not offered at Advanced levels at Mackenzie High School at the time.
It was at this point that Deon caught the attention of the executives of the Linden Fund USA, who offered him a scholarship to assist throughout his tenure at Queen’s College.
The Fund would also assist Deon later when he got his Guyana scholarship to further his studies in Cuba. He describes his tenure there as very challenging but also greatly rewarding.
“I’m very grateful to the Linden Fund because they really assisted me. They even gave me my first laptop, which I still have. I consider that a really great act of benevolence on their part, because at the time a laptop wasn’t so easy to come by. As a matter of fact many of my colleagues spent the entire six years in Cuba and could not afford to acquire one, so I’m really thankful to Linden Fund.”
And to show his gratitude Deon is currently giving back to the Linden community by volunteering his time to help teach young people with learning disabilities.
Deon said that he will also be forever grateful to his parents who always exhorted him to “never settle for mediocrity” in anything he did.
It is obvious that he heeded that advice well, and has made them proud, because according to Deon, on the day he left Guyana for Cuba to pursue his scholarship, he became an ‘instant celebrity’. His entire family, relatives and friends accompanied him to the airport.
“I was the only one at the airport to arrive in a big bus,” he said with an air of amusement.
Not surprising, considering the fact that he was the first in his family to acquire ‘any sort of scholarship.’ (Enid Joaquin)
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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