Teenager sees GOAL as his lifeline

KEAON KATTOW, 19 PUTS ALL HIS EGGS IN THE GUYANA ONLINE ACADEMY
OF LEARNING (GOAL) BASKET. For him, he has nothing to lose by hedging all his bets on
the nascent local learning initiative recently unveiled by the government.
“From since the age of 14, I see the community struggling to have a permanent doctor in place. I
have seen a lot of incidents happen in my community where patients don't get the best services or
the best treatments and healthcare. So, from then I have that passion of being a doctor, not only
from my community but for the county in general,” Kattow tells www.aroundtheregions.com in
an exclusive.
The St Cuthbert’s Mission resident secured six passes in 2019 at the Regional Caribbean
Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) offered by the Caribbean Examinations Council
(CXC). He would have been further up the academic ladder by now, but for the daunting
endemic financial challenges faced by the family.
With no prospects of financial help on the horizon, the ambitious teenager reluctantly shelved
pursuing medicine to take the strain of his father, the family’s main breadwinner who supports
four other school-age children and wife. His oldest brother is employed.
In the interim, he enrolled at the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) and successfully
completed the Certificate in Forestry.
He reminisced: “Shortly after completing secondary school, I ventured into the Forestry
programme at GSA. However, due to the pandemic I returned home in March and I did a few
months of my classes online. While studying I applied to a few places for a job but didn’t get
through. So right now, I am a CSO (Community Service Officer) within my community, where I
am in health. As I perform my CSO duties I see the urgent need for a doctor in this community
as it has given me a clear vision in the areas for delivering quality service to the residents of my
community in the area of health,” Kattow said.

But he couldn’t help feel his dreams of becoming a medical doctor gradually fading.
But as fate would have it, a female physician recently visited the Mahaica River community and
the two struck up a conversation where he revealed his medical ambition. It was she who alerted
him about the GOAL scholarship and urged him to apply.
His fingers are still crossed.
“I will be very happy. very, very happy if I win this scholarship for this particular programme.
My family is very excited and happy that I applied and they have vowed to help and support me
in every way possible, as like me they are determined for me to be successful,” Kattow related.
“They intend to push me in every way and I know that they will be very happy if I do secure this
scholarship as it is the only possible way of me being able to do studies in this field considering
our financial situation,” Kattow admitted.
He added, “I have made a promise and a commitment to them and the people of my community
including the Toshao, Timothy Andrews, to give my best and to ensure that this opportunity, if
granted to me, is not wasted in any way.  I intend to make my family proud. I want to make my
community and country and myself proud, as this scholarship will aid in further developing not
only myself but my community and country”.
St Cuthbert’s Mission is a mainly Amerindian village founded about 200 years ago on the
Mahaica River. In its long history, the community never had its own physician. All of that
will change in a few years if GOAL supports the application of ambitious teenager Keaon
Kattow.