{"id":353884,"date":"2021-10-18T06:03:07","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T20:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=353884"},"modified":"2021-10-18T06:03:07","modified_gmt":"2021-10-17T20:03:07","slug":"soroptimist-nmi-confers-live-your-dream-award-to-3-recipients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/soroptimist-nmi-confers-live-your-dream-award-to-3-recipients\/","title":{"rendered":"Soroptimist NMI confers \u2018Live Your Dream\u2019 award to 3 recipients"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Soroptimist
Soroptimist International NMI officers and members pose with the 2021 Live Your Dream awardees. (BEA CABRERA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Celebrating Soroptimist International 100th year this year and Soroptimist International NMI\u2019s eighth year, they awarded three recipients at their annual \u201cLive Your Dream\u201d awards last Saturday at the Mariana Lighthouse on Navy Hill.<\/p>\n

All three recipients\u2014Jamanda Manglona, Kaelani San Nicolas, and Jennifer Benavente\u2014are pursing an education at the Northern Marianas College. This makes it the first time for Soroptimist International NMI to present the award to three persons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year is very special as we\u2019re awarding three women who deserves to be called a \u201cLive Your Dream\u2019 awardees,\u201d said SINMI president Marilyn Marron. \u201cThe points were really close\u2014one winner was a point ahead of two women who were tied at second place and, with that, it wasn\u2019t so hard to decide to declare the three of them as recipients,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The program is aimed at improving the lives of women in the CNMI by providing financial assistance to improve their education, skills, support their families and business venture they want to get into. The awardees are chosen based on a specific criteria: they have to be women who are going through college, while also being the head of their household.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we have three awardees and we are happy to be of help in the journey of these amazing women,\u201d Marron added.<\/p>\n

For this year, the judges were magistrate judge Heather Kennedy of the U.S. District Court of the NMI; Les Ogumoro-Uludong, program manager for CNMI Health Education; and Elsie Skang-Ngewaki, non-instructional faculty at NMC.<\/p>\n

\"Live
Live Your Dream awardee\u00a0Jamanda Manglona poses with her grandmother, Nona. (BEA CABRERA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the awardee, Manglona, who is taking up Liberal Arts Business Management at NMC, thanks SINMI for this opportunity to help her further her education. \u201cI will use part of the award to get a laptop to help me with my online classes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said she was overwhelmed with joy upon learning that she has been chosen to be an awardee. \u201cI cried with my grandmother and daughter when we found out,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026This is an amazing opportunity bless women like me and assure us that there is hope to succeed. The help and encouragement that SINMI spreads is that you should never be ashamed of being a single mom, pursuing school, and needing help. SINMI tells women like me that we\u2019re on the same boat and with perseverance and hard work, hopes and dreams come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manglona, 31 and a mother of four, plans to also use part of her award to buy art supplies \u201cso I can open my business and treat my children because they deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Live
Live Your Dream awardee\u00a0Kaelani San Nicolas. (BEA CABRERA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty-eight-year-old year-old San Nicolas, a working mom pursuing a degree in special education that compliments her certification in American Sign Language from Guam and trying to accomplish Praxis exams, found out about the SINMI scholarship a month ago. \u201cI read and watched the video and decided to give it a try. \u2026I will use the award to continue my education. \u2026I have been struggling, trying to pay bills, taking care of my daughter, and paying for Praxis exams which I need in order to move up in college and take upper courses. \u2026The award will help me push to the finish,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing awarded is both life-enhancing and changing. \u2026My journey toward finishing my education and fulfilling my dreams has been really slow and\u2026I am so glad that they believe in my dream to provide language access for deaf students and support parents because language should be provided not just in school but especially at home,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The third winner, Benavente, 32, is a mother of two taking up business at NMC and is an aspiring entrepreneur. \u201cI applied for the Live Your Dream Award because, as a college student, I want to try and grab every scholarship that is available to me and when I saw that I fit the qualifications they were looking for, I gave it a shot. When I won, I was a bit shocked because I do not usually win a lot of things but I am very happy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Live
Live Your Dream awardee\u00a0Jennifer Benavente. (BEA CABRERA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cRight now, I am currently making and selling pinatas called \u2018Pinatas by Jen\u2019 through Facebook. I know it is not much but I made over 150 for different clients. \u2026I plan to use the cash award to help me finish school and pursue my small business,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s event was hosted by Chris Nelson, while Division of Revenue and Taxation director Tracy Norita and 2018 Live Your Dream awardee Mercilyn Kaneshi Palec were the guest speakers.<\/p>\n

Marron said that SINMI have a couple of projects in line for 2021. Their next project is Halloween, where they are working closely with Karidat Social Services. \u201cWe bring candies over there and then we provide meals for their Thanksgiving dinner. For Christmas, we provide gifts and a Christmas eve meal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Marron said that SINMI encourages more women to continue to help other women \u201cbecause some of them go through lot and it makes a big difference to reach out. \u2026We also invite more women to join SINMI because the more people we have, the stronger the collaboration among women and with that, we can make more impact and give help to more women in need,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrating Soroptimist International 100th year this year and Soroptimist International NMI\u2019s eighth year, they awarded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":353898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}