Photo: Jacob Leslie, President of the Belize Basketball Federation, and Sergio Chuc, President of the Football Federation of Belize signs MOU
by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Wed. Dec. 14, 2022
On Wednesday, December 14, the Belize Basketball Federation (BBF) and the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sports that will establish a framework through which monthly stipends will be sent to Belizean student-athletes living abroad.
The government will provide a monthly allowance of $600 to 22 students chosen by the Football Federation of Belize who are living abroad on either partial or work scholarships. Additionally, 30 under-16 student-athletes chosen by the Basketball Federation will also receive a monthly stipend.
“The fact of the matter is that these students need it out there, because the cost of living in the US is different [from] here in Belize. To some out there, it sounds nice; 600 dollars is good, but 600 Belize [dollars] in the US is very little, but it’s for their best interest, and from the conversations we’re having, they are more than grateful and looking forward to it, said president of the Football Federation of Belize, Sergio Chuc
“… We don’t understand that many of us don’t have access to education and for us to give 30 sixteen and under kids the opportunity to get a tuition scholarship up to a bachelor’s degree in Belize is monumental and it touches me because I never had that opportunity and I need these kids to understand the investment that these government is making in them,” Jacob Leslie, the president of the BBF, remarked.
The Minister of Education, Hon. Francis Fonseca, noted at the signing of the MOU, “It’s been done in a very haphazard fashion for many years, The individual families have generally approached the ministry saying, ‘listen we have this opportunity’. So we wanted to put in place a structured, coordinated process that would allow these formal organizations, these bodies to identify these student-athletes, bring them to us, and say listen, they have gotten partial scholarships at this university or this community college, they need additional support on a monthly basis to assist them with living expenses, accommodation, that sort of thing and so that’s where we stepped in so I’m very pleased that we were able to formalize these MOU’s.”