New Scholarship Honors Gwendolyn Lizarraga, Pays Full UB History Tuition

Five history students at the University of Belize will have their tuition and fees covered for their entire degree under a new scholarship named after national heroine Gwendolyn Lizarraga, Belize’s first female cabinet minister.

The scholarship was launched alongside a memorandum of understanding between the university and the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH), with the Ministry of Education. The institutions plan to collaborate on research, education, cultural promotion and heritage preservation.

Minister Francis Fonseca said the scholarship was tied to the history programme on purpose. “We wanted, of course, as I said, to make sure that we are preserving and promoting history and also remembering the legacy of Madam Liz.”

“It was important for us to do it through the history programme, which is really about empowering Belizeans, making sure that we know who we are as a people, and strengthening our national identity, and these were all things that were very important to Gwendolyn Lizarraga.”

History lecturer Delmer Tzib said the work matters for the country. “It is crucial for our democracy. We cannot continue understanding our present as thinking as issues of only now, but rather looking at it as a product of history.”

He said Belize needs people who can manage cultural heritage and create public exhibits, and that history graduates also go on to research, diplomacy and law.

Applications open through the University of Belize History Department in the coming weeks. The five scholarships are a pilot that could become annual.