With the controversy surrounding the Nigeria Delta State Youth Empowerment Programme abated, students involved in the project have now settled into their studies at the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) in Wildey, St Michael.
Sources with intimate knowledge of the programme, reported today the 70 Nigerian students, who started the course in tourism and entrepreneurship in April this year, were doing very well.
“They have settled in and have integrated well. They are good students, positive and excited. They look forward to all the tours planned for them. They are doing all the projects and exams like regular students,” the source added. The course of study ends in October.
Last December, a total of 90 Nigerian students arrived here to pursue a nine-month study programme at the Barbados Community College (BCC) in tourism and hospitality.
However, the entire Nigeria Delta State Youth Empowerment Programme became shrouded in controversy with the students complaining initially about the quality of their accommodation at Casa Grande Hotel in Oldbury, St Philip.
At the height of the melee, the local project manager Sharon Brathwaite was fired by the programme’s South Africa-based Barbadian consultant Donna St Hill.
Attorney-at-law Douglas Trotman also featured prominently as the drama unfolded, with some of the students being ordered back home to Nigeria, including eight who were initially defiant, but later honoured their government’s directive and returned home on April 4.
The eight, who were represented by Trotman, had also filed a suit in the local law courts against an unnamed party.
And after making his arguments on their behalf before Madame Justice Jacqueline Cornelius, Trotman told Barbados TODAY he had been given seven days to file the “without notice” case. However, days later, the group of eight students left the island.