标签： Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

An 11-year-old blind student from St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) has captured national attention for her extraordinary performance in the 2024 Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), earning a spot at one of the country’s most prestigious secondary institutions. Former East St. George Member of Parliament and ex-finance minister Camillo Gonsalves, who left office after November 2023’s general election, shared the inspiring news in a public Facebook video posted Saturday, highlighting what he calls a defining milestone for inclusive education in the nation.

Faith Grant, who was born without sight, completed her primary education at Fair Hall Government School, an institution that has pioneered a mainstream inclusive education programme for students with physical and learning disabilities. Out of 1,760 CPEA test-takers across SVG, Grant ranked 43rd overall and 19th among all female students — a result that secured her admission to the elite Girls’ High School (GHS).

Gonsalves emphasized that Grant took the exact same standardized examination as every other student, with only targeted accommodations made to help her access test content. A trained invigilator read all questions aloud to her, and for visual components such as geometric diagrams, test staff described shapes by tracing their outlines on her hand or back to help her conceptualize the information. Despite these additional barriers, Grant not only passed the high-stakes exam but outperformed the vast majority of her sighted peers.

The former MP, who has followed Grant’s academic journey closely for years, shared that the young student has long dreamed of attending GHS, a goal that has now become a reality. He described Grant as a multilingual, high-energy learner with an insatiable love of literature and a natural aptitude for mathematics and science. At Fair Hall Government School’s graduation ceremony held June 12, Grant already received multiple academic awards, and she now stands as the school’s highest-ranking CPEA graduate in this year’s cohort.

Gonsalves credited much of Grant’s success to the intentional inclusive education model implemented at Fair Hall Government School, led by principal Angella Kydd Roberts. Several years ago, school leadership made a deliberate decision to integrate students with physical and learning challenges into the general student body, providing them with the same core curriculum as their peers while offering specialized support. The school counts a number of faculty with formal special education training, and even uncertified staff have embraced the institution’s mission, adapting their teaching methods to meet diverse student needs with creativity and care. Grant is not the first student with special needs from Fair Hall to advance to secondary education, but Gonsalves confirmed she is the highest-achieving in the school’s history based on CPEA outcomes.

Placing Grant’s achievement in historical context, Gonsalves noted that when he was a child, blind students in SVG were excluded from mainstream primary education entirely, let alone offered access to elite secondary schools. Grant’s admission to GHS marks a historic first for the nation, and Gonsalves framed her success as both a personal victory and a national milestone for SVG’s evolving education system. While he acknowledged that additional accommodations will be needed to support Grant during her secondary studies, he expressed full confidence in her ability to overcome any future obstacles.

To support Grant’s transition to GHS, Gonsalves has issued a public appeal to corporate entities and good corporate citizens across SVG to provide financial support for specialized assistive technology. Grant is currently learning braille, but many advanced secondary school textbooks and learning materials — particularly those with complex diagrams and illustrations — are not available in braille format. Modern adaptive tools can convert these materials into accessible formats for Grant, but the equipment carries a high price tag that is out of reach for most families. Gonsalves urged local businesses to connect with Grant’s mother to offer support that will remove barriers to her continued academic success.

Closing his message, Gonsalves emphasized that Grant’s achievement was a collective effort, thanking her family, the school’s principal, and all of her teachers for the support that brought her to this point. “It really has been a village that has taken Faith to this point,” he said. He ended with a hopeful pun on Grant’s first name, echoing the SVG national anthem: “I know she’ll go further, and I know that our faith will see us through. Big up.”

Six months after a brutal assault at Kingstown Preparatory School (KPS) left a 9-year-old boy requiring life-saving brain surgery, his single mother is opening up about the relentless physical, emotional, and financial toll of the attack, speaking exclusively to iWitness News on condition of anonymity – a request the family first made in 2025 and has reaffirmed for this reporting.

The unprovoked attack unfolded on October 22, 2025, when an older student at KPS grabbed the young boy by the head, slammed it into a classroom door, then forced his skull onto unforgiving concrete flooring. At the time, the boy’s mother had been working overseas, and she was forced to cut short her employment and rush back to St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to authorize urgent medical intervention. What followed was far worse than anyone initially expected: after surgeons at Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) performed an emergency craniotomy to access the boy’s brain, they discovered a severe case of meningitis that had left 100 milliliters of pus trapped inside his skull, a complication the family had no idea was developing until the procedure began.

After five months of intensive recovery, the young boy made his first tentative return to classroom learning on March 2, 2026. That small win was cut short, however, when he was required to leave school just three months later on June 8 to undergo a second major procedure: a cranioplasty to replace a bone segment in his right forehead. The four-hour operation was deemed a clinical success, but full recovery is projected to take a full year. Now discharged from the hospital, the boy requires daily at-home wound dressing from his mother, who has been unable to resume her overseas job to prioritize his care.

The mother described her emotional state as a constant, exhausting whirlwind of anger, frustration, crippling anxiety, and deep-seated fear, with overwhelming fatigue hanging over every day. “This is the second surgery, and it feels like we’re right back to square one,” she shared. “Some days I feel anxious, while some days are normal; but some days, I feel really tired. I don’t even know how to feel most days – I’m just overwhelmed.”

The long-term health impacts of the assault have already reshaped the boy’s life permanently. Before the attack, he had no history of seizures or vision issues, but now he experiences regular headaches, blurred vision in his right eye, sudden seizure episodes, and recurring fevers that require lifelong antiseizure medication. While he adapted well to his brief return to school and has kept close friendships with his classmates, his mother notes he has grown far quieter than he was before the attack, rarely opening up about the pain he endures.

What has compounded the family’s hardship, the mother says, is the complete lack of outreach from key parties that should have stepped forward to support them. Only KPS school leadership and the institution’s guidance counselor have checked in consistently with the family and offered ongoing concern. To date, she has received no communication whatsoever from the Ministry of Education, nor from the family of the older student who carried out the attack. “I don’t understand how something like this can happen and I have never heard from the ministry. This is really hard for me at times,” she said.

As a single mother currently living with her mother and siblings in SVG, she says she has been left without sustained formal support, and the situation often feels deeply depressing. Still, she expressed sincere gratitude to the community members and organizations that have stepped up to fill the gap: businesswoman Karen Veira of Singer and Oxygen Mas, the leadership of Stubbs Primary School, the Calliaqua Methodist Church, KPS administration, and her immediate family, all of whom have provided critical assistance in the months since the attack.

Looking ahead, the mother says she cannot predict when her son will be able to resume full-time schooling, as his return to the classroom requires formal medical clearance from his treating neurologist. He has already missed scheduled end-of-term exams due to his second surgery, adding another layer of uncertainty to his education. The mother also confirmed that she plans to consult with a legal advisor to pursue next steps in addressing the assault and its catastrophic aftermath.

A 44-year-old security guard from St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been found guilty of assault causing actual bodily harm against his former girlfriend and former coworker, and has been ordered by the court to pay thousands of dollars in combined fines and compensation to his victim.

Roen Richardson, a resident of Ottley Hall, stood before Senior Magistrate Tammika McKenzie at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court on June 2 to face judgement for the September 12, 2025 incident that left victim Cleopatra Harris, a Largo Heights resident, with a permanent scar on her hand.

Court testimony laid out the background of the case: Harris and Richardson had worked together at the Kingstown Town Board and maintained a romantic relationship for two and a half years, before the couple split roughly six weeks ahead of the attack.

On the morning of the assault, Harris was working her shift along Bedford Street when Richardson approached her to ask if she would reconcile and restart their relationship. Shortly after his request, a man with a non-Vincentian accent approached Harris for directions to a local park, and hugged her to thank her for her assistance.

Witnessing the brief hug, an enraged Richardson immediately confronted Harris: he shoved her hard in the chest, publicly claimed that he was her romantic partner, and launched into a stream of aggressive, misogynistic insults targeting her character.

When Richardson returned to the worksite before 2 p.m. that same day, he brought a chair that Harris says was made of metal and loaned it to her to sit on, but continued to hurl abusive language at her. Fed up with his harassment, Harris stood up and called Richardson foolish, asserting that as an independent woman, she had full right to make her own choices about her interactions and personal life.

In response to Harris’s rebuke, Richardson picked up the same chair he had loaned her and struck her hard on the hand with the furniture. Richardson disputed the description of the chair during cross-examination, claiming it was made of plastic rather than metal, the only point of contradiction he raised against the victim’s testimony.

After the attack, Harris first reported the incident to her workplace supervisor, who arranged an internal meeting with Richardson. When the matter was not resolved through workplace mediation, Harris filed an official report with the Kingstown Criminal Investigation Unit (CID), which provided her with medical documentation for her injuries and launched a formal investigation. Harris presented investigators with text messages Richardson sent her following the attack, in which he admitted he had not intended to hurt her. The victim told authorities she wanted no further contact with Richardson at all.

Richardson also introduced court documents showing that Harris had reached out to him after the incident, though Harris clarified that the messages only served to repeat her demand that he stop contacting her. The defendant chose not to deliver a full testimony in his own defense, stating simply that he only wished to conclude the court proceedings as quickly as possible.

During the sentencing phase, Harris shared that the two-and-a-half-year relationship with Richardson had been consistently abusive. She told the court that she had chosen to stay in the relationship for far longer than she should have, because she lived in constant fear of his retaliation. While Harris requested that the court not sentence Richardson to prison, she asked for EC$5,000 (roughly $1,850 USD) in compensation, noting that the visible scar from the chair attack still remains on her hand years after the incident.

Prosecutors, led by Police Corporal Samuel Stapleton, informed the court that Richardson had a prior criminal conviction from 2016 on a charge of damaging personal cellular property. The prosecution did not push for a custodial prison sentence for the 2025 assault.

In her final ruling, Senior Magistrate McKenzie ordered Richardson to pay a total of EC$750 (around $278 USD) in compensation to Harris: EC$450 of that sum is due immediately, with the remaining balance required by June 26. Richardson was also issued an additional fine of EC$250, with EC$150 due by June 26 and the rest to be paid by July 15. If Richardson fails to meet the payment deadlines for either the compensation or the fine, he will serve a five-month prison sentence for each unpaid amount.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Ministry of Education has released preliminary results for the 2024 Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), naming Draádon A. Ackie from Richland Park Seventh-day Adventist Primary School as the nation’s top-performing student. Ackie secured the first-place position with an exceptional overall score of 98.20%, and also ranked among the top nine scorers in the exam’s language section with a 96% mark. The 2024 ranking features multiple tied positions across the top 10 spots, with a total of 11 students earning placement in this elite group.

Following Ackie, Naailah Azziza Stevenson of Kingstown Preparatory School (KPS) claimed second place overall, as well as the second-highest rank among female test-takers. Three candidates tied for third place overall: Amiah Kristal Anderson from KPS, Uliano Ozarie Ryan of Dickson Methodist Primary School, and Michael E. Febuary, Ackie’s schoolmate from Richland Park SDA. All three also earned second-place rankings in their respective gender categories.

A three-way tie for sixth place went to Anniah Aysia John (KPS), Philan B. Lewis (Richland Park SDA), and Akili Adekola Neverson (Sugar Mill Academy). John took third place among female students, while Lewis and Neverson tied for fourth in the female rankings. Damien Skyler Franklyn of Windsor Primary School secured ninth place overall and sixth rank among male participants. The 10th spot was split between Orijé Orando Brewster (KPS) and Zuri Sarina Salandy of Brighton Methodist, with Brewster ranking seventh among boys and fourth among girls.

A total of 1,766 sixth-grade students registered for this year’s assessment, which concluded its on-site testing phase on May 14, and 1,760 candidates completed all required components. Preliminary data shows an overall pass rate of 88.47%, with 1,557 students meeting the passing threshold – a small but noticeable improvement over the 2023 pass rate of 87.34%. Of the successful candidates, 732 are male and 825 are female. To pass, students must earn a minimum of 250 marks, or 50% of the maximum 500 total available points across the assessment’s two components.

CPEA final scores are calculated by combining results from two core components: an external national assessment and a school-based assessment (SBA). The SBA contributes 40% of a student’s total grade, with a maximum possible 200 marks, while the external exam accounts for the remaining 60% (300 total points). The external assessment consists of multiple-choice tests covering four core subjects: mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. The SBA, by contrast, evaluates students through a diverse set of in-school work, including a cumulative research project, writing portfolio, book report, teacher-created unit tests, student-developed assessments, and practical skills exercises across the four core subject areas.

In the external assessment component, several students earned perfect 100% scores in individual subjects. Amiah Anderson and Uliano Ozarie Ryan both achieved full marks in mathematics. Four candidates – Akili Neverson, Amauri Greaves (both Sugar Mill Academy), Jediah Luke (Windsor Primary), and Noah Yorke (Mustique Primary) – scored 100% in science. Nine students tied for the highest language arts score at 96%, including top overall performer Ackie, alongside Kelleigh Kirby (Windsor Primary), Shanae Joseph (Richland Park Government), Faith Ballantyne (KPS), Damari Williams (CW Prescod Primary), Isabella Currency (Sugar Mill Academy), Havanna James (New Grounds Primary), Gabrielle Glasgow (Lowmans Windward Anglican), and Rockell Ballantyne (Clare Valley Government). For social studies, four students earned perfect 100% scores: Naailah Stevenson, Amiah Anderson, Michael Febuary, and Damien Franklyn.

In an official press statement announcing the results, the Ministry of Education extended formal congratulations to all students who completed the assessment. The statement also expressed gratitude to headteachers, teaching staff, school personnel, and all education stakeholders for their ongoing support of student learning and preparation for the national assessment.

A young manual laborer from Richland Park, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has received a suspended prison sentence after police found a single 9mm bullet during a court-authorized search of his residence linked to a separate criminal allegation.

Nineteen-year-old Dwayne Jackson appeared before Chief Magistrate Colin John at the Kingstown Serious Offences Court on Monday. During the arraignment, he entered a not guilty plea to a separate charge of using threatening language, which was alleged to have occurred on June 11 — just two days before the ammunition was uncovered in his home.

Prosecutor Renrick Cato, an Inspector of Police, laid out the official facts of the case to the court. The investigation into the alleged threatening language prompted authorities to obtain and execute a search warrant for Jackson’s Richland Park property on June 13. When officers arrived, Jackson was home, agreed to the search without pushback, and stayed on site throughout the entire process.

The single round of ammunition was located by PC 88 Richardson inside a blue floral-patterned vase that was placed on a wooden storage unit in Jackson’s living room. When shown the bullet, Jackson told officers he had picked it up off a public roadway quite some time earlier. Appearing in court without legal representation, Jackson elaborated that he found the ammunition the day after an outdoor street party (locally referred to as a “jiggy party”) where multiple gunshots had been fired.

Jackson addressed the court directly to share details of his difficult personal circumstances. He explained that he dropped out of Emmanuel High School Mesopotamia when he was in Form 3, after a fight over a romantic relationship that left another person injured. He told the court he has no family or social support to help him improve his situation, adding that members of his community frequently mock him for living in poor, unsanitary conditions.

Prosecutor Cato asked the magistrate to consider allowing Jackson a chance at community-based supervision rather than immediate custody. In his response to the defendant, Chief Magistrate John rejected the idea that Jackson’s difficult background excuses the illegal possession of ammunition. “You can’t blame your situation and say you grew up a certain way. Apply yourself,” the chief magistrate told the defendant. He emphasized that the opportunity for a second chance rests entirely in Jackson’s hands, urging him to seek stable employment to turn his life around.

In handing down the sentence, the magistrate deactivated a previous pretrial bond that was in place for Jackson, sentencing him to six months of imprisonment that is suspended for a 12-month period. He also ordered that the seized 9mm ammunition be permanently confiscated by authorities. For the threatening language charge, the magistrate granted bail in the amount of EC$1,000, which Jackson was able to post via his own recognisance. The case for that charge was transferred to the Mesopotamia Magistrate’s Court, with the next hearing scheduled for June 26. In closing, the magistrate repeated his advice to Jackson: “Go and look for work. Don’t come back before me.”

Carnival event organizers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are now facing a critical new requirement: all carnival-related gatherings must obtain a formal electrical inspection certificate from the country’s Electrical Inspectorate Division before they can proceed. The policy shift comes in response to a years-long trend of dangerous electrical oversights at private and public events, according to senior officials.

Deputy Chief Electrical Inspector Lonzel Jones outlined the new regulatory framework during a press briefing hosted by the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) on Wednesday, noting that the state of electrical installations documented by inspectors over the past three years was deeply concerning enough to force immediate regulatory change. Jones explained that as the number of independent, private carnival events has grown steadily, inspection teams have repeatedly encountered life-threatening hazards across event sites. These violations have included exposed electrical cables submerged in standing water, and widespread use of damaged, outdated electrical equipment that poses major shock and fire risks to attendees and event staff.

Jones addressed common pushback from event organizers, many of whom have questioned why the new rules are being implemented now after decades of unregulated installations. “People keep saying that nothing happened over the years, so why are you guys popping up now? And that is exactly what we are trying to prevent — something from happening,” Jones stated. He emphasized that the division’s goal is not to disrupt or cancel celebrations, but to protect the general public: “we are not here to be party poopers; we are just here to make sure that the populace of St. Vincent and the Grenadines continues to be safe.”

Officials point to common industry practices that create inherent safety gaps for event electrical work. Most event setups are completed overnight, under tight time pressure that pushes electricians and organizers to cut corners and skip critical safety checks. Additionally, it is common for extra electrical equipment and lighting to be added after initial setup is complete, creating unplanned loads and additional hazards that would go unnoticed without formal oversight.

Under the new process, promoters must follow a clear, step-by-step approval pathway to receive their inspection certificate. First, organizers must submit a formal “Notification of Intent” application, which provides the Electrical Inspectorate Division with full details of the planned electrical installation, including the total number of lighting fixtures, equipment loads, and other key specifications. Once the application is reviewed, organizers receive a temporary pass that must be presented to local police to obtain formal event permission.

A core requirement of the new rules mandates that all event electrical work must be completed by certified, licensed electricians. After installation is finished, a team of inspectors will visit the event site to conduct a thorough pre-event inspection, verifying that all work meets national safety standards. Inspectors will also remain on site throughout the duration of the event to conduct ongoing monitoring, checking for any last-minute additions of electrical equipment that do not comply with safety rules.

If inspectors identify any defects or hazardous conditions during the pre-event inspection, organizers will be required to fix all issues before a final safety certificate is granted. Jones confirmed that no event will be allowed to proceed to opening until all safety corrections have been completed and verified, a measure designed to eliminate avoidable risk for all attendees.