SARASWATI Vidya Niketan, (SVN), the Hindu secondary school at Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara, has said it is delighted to announce that all three of its students sent on scholarships to the United States have finally returned to Guyana. The last to return from the U.S. is Natasha Persaud, who rejoined her school and family on June 17 last.

Natasha did a Business degree at York College, City University of New York (CUNY).
She was among the best SVN graduating students in the 2006 CSEC examinations, in addition to being the first student to have officially enrolled in the school, after taking a transfer from a prominent city school.  She is now teaching at SVN.

The other two students, who came back in 2011, are Nirmala Singh and Kaminie Singh (not related).

Nirmala was SVN’s Best CSEC Graduating Student in 2005, and was in the first batch of students to appear for CSEC at SVN. She studied Mathematics Education at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY). Prior to returning, Nirmala taught in New York City schools as a requirement for her degree.  She is now with SVN, teaching in the Mathematics department.

Kaminie Singh graduated from Lehman College with a degree in English Education. Kaminie was SVN’s Best CSEC graduating student in 2006. As a young student at SVN, it was evident that Kaminie loved reading, and showed quite early, a flair for writing; and it’s little wonder that she graduated from Lehman with honours.  She teaches English Language and Literature at SVN.

All three of these young teachers will be great assets to SVN when the school introduces CAPE in 2013. A number of students and their parents have indicated a strong interest in having SVN move to this advanced CXC level.  When this happens, SVN will be the only secondary school in Region 3 to do so.
The scholarships for these three former SVN students were financed by a single extended USA-based Guyanese Hindu family, the Ramnarayans.
They took care of all tuition costs, books, travel, and other incidental expenses, in addition to providing room and board. According to the founder and principal of SVN, without the intervention of the Ramnarayans, it would not have been possible to provide these scholarships.
What is extremely heartening is that the family has committed to supporting future scholarship programmes of the school.
In the meantime, Swami Aksharananda has indicated that the institution will continue to invest in the training and development of its young teachers.
Currently, SVN is supporting two teachers at CPCE, where they are pursuing the Associate Degree in Education.
The school is paying their tuition fees, in addition to providing them a monthly stipend of $50,000 each, plus their travel. They plan to move on to the University of Guyana with continued support from SVN.