2026 Rhodes Scholar Lauded for Rainwater Harvesting Project

The decision by the 2026 Rhodes Scholar, Tiana Dinham, to spearhead a community-based rainwater harvesting project for her native parish, Hanover, is being hailed by Governor-General, His Excellency the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen.

Launched in 2025, the project, dubbed the ‘Rainwater Initiative for Sustainability and Empowerment (RISE)’, the Governor-General says her “long-standing dedication” to water safety and access to clean water, is a cause that she has championed since her early years in primary school, and the most recent initiative “stands as a testament to her deep commitment to people’s well-being and sustainable development”.

“These qualities of leadership, service, and vision reflect the very essence of a Governor-General’s Achievement Award (GGAA) recipient and align with the calibre of leadership sought in a Rhodes Scholar. Her academic journey reflects a seamless progression from passion to purpose, transforming early advocacy into specialised expertise,” the Governor-General tells JIS News.

Stressing that this trajectory signals Miss Dinham’s potential to make a lasting impact, particularly within her home parish of Hanover and, by extension, Jamaica, he says her work exemplifies how academic excellence, grounded in community service, can be “harnessed to address critical national and global challenges”.

“The fact that both mother and daughter have received the award underscores a deeply rooted commitment within their household to community development that extends to nation-building, reflecting a forward-looking vision focused not only on their own generation but on those yet to come,” he adds.

Miss Dinham received the GGAA Award in 2023, while her mother, Andria Dehaney Watson, got the award in 2011.

Noting that the GGAA recognises individuals who harness their skills to advance their communities and, by extension, the nation, the Governor-General shares that the diverse fields represented by awardees reflect what is right about Jamaica, and citizens who channel their talents into meaningful community advancement.

The Governor-General underscores that the GGAA encourages awardees that they are living examples of what is right about Jamaica, and their dedication to community service and personal excellence sets a standard for others to follow.

Miss Dinham was bestowed with the Elan Beckford Award while she was a student at the then Hanover-based Maryland All-Age School, now Maryland Primary and Infant School, which is for the top student, not just in academics but also extracurricular activities.

She was also the top Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) student for Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science, and the overall top student.

Later on, while at the Mount Alvernia High School in St. James, she was a part of the Gold Honour Roll for all seven years that she was there.

She was a top student in sixth form and was the Valedictorian, as well as the Head Girl.

She also received the top award for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). She received the top award for Pure Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Caribbean Studies, and the Principal’s Award, which is for the top student in the entire school at her grade-11 graduation.

In the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, she got 12 ones, and eight distinctions in CAPE. At the United Staes (US)-based University of North Carolina UNC), at Chapel Hill, where she is a student, she is a Robertson Scholar, which is a prestigious merit-based scholarship with dual enrollment at UNC and Duke University.

Miss Dinham is part of the Dean’s List for all semesters, and is part of Honors Carolina, which is a competitive four-year academic programme, and connects exceptional students who share a passion for learning, with renowned faculty who love teaching.

The exceptional student is also a Hayden B. Renwick Scholar, which is awarded for academic achievement for students with a Grade Point Average (GPA) greater than 3.8., and she is part of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, which is the United States’ oldest academic honour society recognising excellence in liberal arts.

“If I could dedicate these awards to anyone, I would dedicate it to my family, but especially my mom and my dad. They have made a lot of sacrifices in their lives to ensure that I could dream big and dream broad. So, there was never a restriction on what I needed to do or what I had to do, because they were willing to support me along the way, whether it was to become a doctor or now to become a geologist or later a water scientist,” Miss Dinham shares with JIS News.

Under the RISE project, she was able to secure more than $300,000 to create the community-based rainwater harvesting initiative to improve water access and quality in Hanover.

Miss Dinham has also partnered with the Hanover Health Department to provide training on safe water collection and to teach the recipients how to not just collect water but also to treat it and eventually spread the knowledge to other members in their community.

“We were also able to donate three chlorine residue comparators to three rural primary schools that depend heavily on rainwater harvesting, because one of the biggest problems that rural schools are experiencing is that they don’t know if the water that they’re buying from the water truck is sufficiently chlorinated to be used for drinking purposes and cooking purposes in their schools,” she shares.

After Hurricane Melissa devastated the island on October 28 last year, she raised needed educational items and presented them to her former primary school.

Miss Dinham sees the Rhodes Scholarship as a “great honour, to not just represent myself and my family, but my parish, my high school, my primary school”.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of not just furthering my education, but it is a belief that other people have in the work that I am currently doing and want to do for the future,” she says.

The Rhodes Scholarship will provide funds to pursue postgraduate studies in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom (UK).

Miss Dinham describes the achievement as an “empowerment factor” to strive for excellence and trying to help people around her to live a better and more fulfilling life, including her peers.

With all the many accolades the 22-year-old has achieved, she says that when young people look at her, she would like them to see her as someone who is striving for change, “someone that sees a good in the world through the ugly, someone that believes that community development is a key for a more sustainable future, where we care about not just ourselves but the people around us”.

For her mother, Andria Dehaney Watson, who is the Principal of Maryland Primary School, her daughter’s brilliance was realised from she was at infant school.

“I really didn’t have to help her with her homework. She would basically do her homework from the early years. I would really just have to look back at the work that she was doing and to check if it was correct, but she would not depend on me to come and sit over her to do her work for her,” she shares with JIS News.

Mrs. Dehaney Watson says the many awards for excellent academic performance have been great savings for the family in what they had to spend on her education, and her community is quite elated over the Rhodes Scholarship, which is “one of her greatest achievements.”

“So, to all the persons who contributed to it, to all the members from our community who have contributed by even giving her good advice, all the persons who have given her support, all our family members, to everyone, I want to say thank you. And I know that she will continue to be a beacon of hope for the parish of Hanover,” she adds.

Kerry-Ann Morrison who taught Miss Dinham at the Patty Hill Basic School, shares with JIS News that her then young student used to repeat things that she was taught, and even tried teaching other children in the classroom.

“The family members would tell me that whatever I taught her in the day, she would be at home doing the very same thing, like teaching the family members, uncle or aunt, that this is a triangle, and this is colour, this is yellow, and you have to colour inside the shape and not outside the shape,” she says.

For teacher at the Mount Alvernia High School, Andrew Henry, the Rhodes Scholarship has made him overjoyed, because “knowing it was the child I had taught, it was really joyful,” noting that Miss Dinham was very dedicated to her books and cared for her peers at high school.

Vice President of the Maryland Community Development Committee (CDC), Tickaya Pinnock, says Miss Dinham is a helpful person to others in the community, and one “who is always there to keep her culture going, and has contributed immensely to their dance group, and is a sponsor of the Mini Miss Maryland competition that we have yearly”.

“That little rural country girl has put Maryland on the map again, has placed Hanover on the map,” she says, while appealing for contributions to the RISE project.

“Give her as much support as you can, because she is trying to change a situation that has been in Maryland for many years, that has been in Hanover and rural communities for many years,” Miss Pinnock says.

The Rhodes Scholarship is a prestigious, fully funded, international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in the UK.

It covers tuition fees and a living stipend of £20,400 per annum, supporting roughly 100 exceptional leaders worldwide annually for two to three years of study.