05/11/2025
This Scholarship Award was created in memory of Mother Amy Downer to provide financial assistance to one youth member of the Showers of Blessing Apostolic Church, Catadupa, the Showers of Blessing Church, Claremont, (Ginger Hill), and the Showers of Blessing Church, Stonehenge.
The award, of CAN$1,000.00 / JA$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand dollars) seeks to help ease the financial burdens of parents, some of whom might be struggling unassisted, to give their children an education so they can be economically independent adults equipped to maximize their full potential. It also aims to reinforce to our youth membership that they are important, and just as they invest their time and effort into God’s Kingdom, we are willing to invest in their future success.
MY Mother, Amy Downer was a Member of the SOBAC, Catadupa until she died in 1994.
ELIGIBILITY
One scholarship will be awarded annually according to financial need as well as based on previous academic performance assessed via submission of the last two previous semesters’ academic report/records with a completed application form. A recipient of the Mother Amy Downer Scholarship Award MUST be a Showers of Blessing Apostolic member or the child/ward of a Showers of Blessing Apostolic member.
APPLICATION INTAKE PERIOD
Applications for the scholarship will be accepted between June 1st – July 15th each year and paid out/awarded in August each year. Eligible applications will be those received by SOBAC via channels to be determined for each intake period (Hand delivered, Emailed and or Mailed via regular post). All applications MUST include proof of acceptable academic performance/grades to be determined by SOBAC and announced for each intake period.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS/COMMITMENT
Grant award recipients must have successfully completed All Age/Primary School and about to enroll in their first year of high school. Scholarship recipients will be required to sign a commitment to ten (10) hours of voluntary service at SOBAC office or SOBAC sponsored project/s.
I decided to fund this scholarship through this church in honour of my mother, Mrs. Amy Downer because the Showers of Blessing Apostolic Church, Catadupa, assisted me financially when I graduated from Kingston Technical High School in 1988 and needed financial help to attend Montego Bay Community College in 1989.
I remember as if it was yesterday, that I got off the train from Kingston to Catadupa at the Catadupa train station after I had travelled to Kingston to collect my Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) results. I had passed all 4 of the subjects I had sat in CXC, English Language, English Literature, Office Procedures and (I cannot remember the name of the 4th subject right now, that was 41 years ago!
When I climbed the many steps up to the house where Elder Davis lived above the church and shared my good news and showed him my CXC results, Elder Davis beamed with pride and asked me what I wanted to do next now that I had my CXC results. I told him that it was my goal to attend Montego Bay Community College. He then said; “If you are able to get into Montego Community College, I will personally help you financially, all you have to do is get accepted into the college! I applied and was accepted to Comm C (as it is called) and the rest, as they say is history.
Elder Davis kept his promise and for the one year that I attended Mobay Comm College, I stayed with him at the house on the rock above the church. I did so well at Mobay Community College that my Guidance Counsellor there at the time, Mrs. Jarrett personally recommended me to her friend who was an accountant at the National Water Commission for the position of her assistant and Clerk Typist for the Accounts department as the position was vacant and the accountant Mrs. Audrey Guthrie had reached out to her to ask if there was any Mobay Comm College student graduating that year she could recommend for the role.
I worked at the Bogue location of the NWC (which is its head quarters in Western Jamaica for about two years (from 1989-1992) before applying for a job at the Jamaica Telephone Company in 1992 for a Clerk Typist position at its Church Street Montego Bay main office. I worked at Telephone Company for 5 years before I resigned in 1997 for health reasons and to attend the University of the West Indies. I then started my career in journalism after I graduated from a 1-year Diploma program in Media and Communications at UWI, Mona campus.
So, you all might be wondering, why name the scholarship in honour of my mother If it was Elder Davis that helped me financially to attend community college? Well up until then, it was my mother, Mrs. Amy Downer that single handedly and sometimes with the help of others, carried me all through high school. I lived with my aunt Effie Barrett in Kingston initially when I first started attending high school in Kingston, Jamaica but when she migrated to the USA to live Permanently my mother had to scramble to find somewhere suitable for me to live so I could continue and finish high school. My mother, a woman who never held a formal job all her life (except when she moved to Kingston briefly to work as a domestic helper before having to move back to Belfont, Catadupa to take care of he ailing mother, Miss Harry) moved heaven and earth to find suitable homes in Kingston to ensure I was able to finish High School.
I ended up living with two other persons/families before I graduated high school.
1. My cousin Patsy (who was more like my aunt) and her
children, Kay, Debbie and Brian and her husband Basil in
Westport, Portmore St. Catherine and
2.Mrs. Bogle, her husband Mr. Bogle and their daughter Annette
Bogle on Spanish Town Road in West Kingston (I will write
more about these experiences in my second book:
PSYCHOSIS: Diagnosed Bipolar at 50 after the launch of my
first book and debut novel, +CROSSING+ which will be
published before the end of 2025.
My mother is my heroine and was for a long while my best friend. No matter where I lived, she was a CONSTANT presence via her many letters that would arrive via the post office and in later years via my brother Winston who also worked at Telephone Company with me. SOBAC was the Praying Force of Faith that strengthened my mother for the numerous spiritual, financial and other battles she had to fight for me throughout the years.
It was King Solomon that said, there is nothing new under the sun, and today there are numerous mothers who are raising their children single handedly with only the help of God and a praying church. It is those mothers and children that this scholarship fund will seek to assist, one shining diamond in the rough at a time. My mother taught me that an education will open doors of opportunity for me, and she was right.
In the years that I spent away from my mother and my siblings, books and the characters who people their pages became my best friends and family. By age 9 when I was in grade 5 in All Age / Primary school in Jamaica I read every single book in the school library in Goodwill St. James, (where I had gone to live with an elderly couple recommended by one of my mother’s church sister; Mrs. Daphne Clennon). When I couldn’t find any new books in the school library to read and I started re-borrowing books I had already read, the school principal (Mr. Bowen) who also doubled as the Librarian, took pity on me and started bringing books from his personal literary stash at home to lend me.
Books and learning have opened numerous doors of opportunity for me and at 55 years old I am still enrolled in school. I will complete a Graduate Certificate program in Public Administration at Seneca Polytechnic (College) in Aril 2026.
_______________________
There is an African saying: “If you want to travel FAST, go alone, but if you want to travel FAR carrying others or someone with you.”
“We reach further and do more by standing on the shoulders of GIANTS”
It is important that we reach back and help others when we have been assisted in the past, so the circle of KINDNESS will continue even when we have not fully arrived ourselves. Life is a continuum so we need to do what we can when we can with FAITH that the God we serve WILL +PROVIDE+
It was Nelson Mandela who said: “It’s ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLE until it’s done!”
- Andrea Downer-Ashley
“Study to show thyself approved.” – 2 TIMOTHY 2 V 5
ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER - AMY DOWNER in CATADUPA, ST. JAMES, JAMAICA 🇯🇲 I decided to fund this scholarship through this church in honour of my mother, Mrs. Amy Downer because the Showers of Blessing Apostolic Church, Catadupa, as...
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