If there are limitations, you set them. If there are boundaries, you built them. If this is how far you’ve reached, you’ve stopped reaching. Who is stopping you? Who is stopping you from reaching your goals in life? “When I was younger people would say to me, ‘learn what you can while you can’, and ‘your school years are your best years’. I wish I had listened”, said Shenika Campbell, student in the Learn and Earn Program at Centre for Training and Innovation.
Shenika Campbell, 29, is a native of New Providence with some root in Palmetto Point, Eleuthera.
Life for her, like many of the students at CTI has not been a piece of cake.
After the death for her mother in 2011, she was forced to give up her 4 year old daughter to her father in order to raise her son, who was only 2 years old at the time.
She once worked at Wendy’s until she had to discontinue this job due to surgery. During her time of recovery, Shenika visited a friend in Eleuthera.
“I was looking for a change in my life”, she said.”
“A month later my son and I started our lives in Eleuthera. This was my opportunity to start over and I wanted it more than anything.”
When Shenika moved to Eleuthera in 2012, she was unemployed and searched for work for a long time. Due to circumstances like seasonal opportunities and even death of an employer, she moved from job to job working as a hair braider, cook and then a housekeeper.
Then she heard about CTI.
“When I found out about the CTI program in January 2016, I jumped for that chance to make a better life for myself and my kids.”
Shenika decided to do training in the plumbing field. At the time she felt like it was just something for her to gain knowledge about, but it was not her true calling. This one opportunity, although it was not her preference, opened the door for Shenika to transition into doing research. She was challenged by the assignments she was given to complete; learning new skills she never thought could be useful and utilizing skills from her past she thought she would never use again.
Shenika’s work ethic, attitude and willing spirit opened the door to even another opportunity to transition. She is now training as a Development Intern. Who knows what doors will open for her next?
Shenika has a message of reassurance for anyone who is discouraged.
“CTI is where you go to expand on your dreams; to make a better life for yourself. Faculty and staff treat you like family. They understand your weaknesses and help you to improve them to be your strengths. This is where you can find a hand to help you not a face to laugh at you”, Shenika said.
“I would encourage any Eleutheran or Bahamian who is unsure about what they want in life to rise to the challenge and try CTI. Don’t let an opportunity like this pass you by. Because of this program I am more outspoken and willing to ‘grab the bull by the horns’ as the saying goes. There is always room for improving yourself. CTI is that vessel for you to improve YOU.
This is truly an opportunity that comes knocking I hope that everyone is willing to open that door, or let CTI train you to build that door.
P.S. Being a part of the CTI family has inspired Shenika to find out more about and build a relationship with family she may still have residing in Palmetto Point, Eleuthera. She would like anyone who knows of and/or is related to Charlotte Mary Thompson-Bethell, formally of New York by way of Palmetto Point, to contact her at 334-2948.
