Inspiring step towards empowering Turks and Caicos Islanders

Over 100 children in their last two years at school had a Friday of a different sort in the Turks and Caicos Islands recently.

Instead of the normal classroom routines they were invited to a 5 Star Resort on TCI’s Grace Bay for lunch, and an opportunity to hear Sanya Richards-Ross, one of the world’s best athletes, talk about motivation.

This different sort of day was offered to the schools by a Canadian developer of resorts in TCI, Stan Hartling, whose company was holding the groundbreaking event for their new resort, the Shore Club.

As well as a first class lunch, the children had an opportunity to talk to some 20 companies who had set up career stands to describe the sort of work they were offering. Each of the companies, ranging from accountancy firms to quantity surveyors, are involved in the Shore Club development.

During lunch four times Olympic gold medallist Jamaican Richards-Ross described how she had stuck with her ambitions, despite injuries and losses, to come back at the London Olympics, winning three golds after an eight year gap.

Stan Hartling also told the audience at the groundbreaking how he had pushed through with this new development despite the major economic difficulties after 2008.

The Shore Club will be the first major condominium resort on Long Bay, is a groundbreaker in every sense for TCI, and just the sort of initiative the country needs to really start to generate growth.

A couple of days after the happy events of the groundbreaking I was doing some quick shopping on Providenciales. The young check out assistant recognised me from the event at the Shore Club. A student from Clement Howell School, he told me how he had been inspired by the day to consider securing a position in the hospitality industry after college.

That is precisely what the launch was intended to do – congratulations to Stan Hartling and his team on a very early achievement with their groundbreaking!