News Releases

Arthur Ashe legacy for students

For Release Upon Receipt - August 14, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad & Tobago – During July and August 2013, 19 secondary school students had the chance to participate in the Health Disparities Climate Change Summer Internship Program. The internship was conducted by the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH), through the J. William Fulbright Research Specialist Programme, in collaboration with The University of the West Indies (UWI) and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs).  

According to the AAIUH, climate change will pose an increasing public health threat to the generation currently in secondary school. The internship programme introduced secondary school students to public health and climate change issues and tools needed to effect change, inspiring them to pursue a career in these fields. 

The community-engaged curriculum development process, developed in partnership with The UWI resulted in a five-week programme to provide training, public health career exploration and field research internships in local community-based organisations. Students were exposed to the following themes:  

  • Public information on health and climate change; risk management
  • Public health surveillance and opportunities to use climate information
  • Core concepts in public health and epidemiology
  • Emergency preparedness
  • Systems for surveillance and support and interagency cooperation
  • Environmental justice
  • Basic data analysis related to disease control and climate change 

A closing ceremony will take place on Friday August 16, 2013, at The UWI Faculty of Law. There, students will have the opportunity to present their research findings through oral and poster presentations. For further information, please contact Mrs. Paulette Belafonte-Paul at 662-2002 ext. 83111 or paulette.belfonte@sta.uwi.edu, or Dr Marilyn Fraser-White at mfraserwhite@arthurasheinstitute.org.

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More about the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health

The Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH) is a non-profit organisation founded in 1992 by the late Arthur Ashe, tennis champion, civil rights activist, and humanitarian. Located in multi-ethnic Brooklyn, AAIUH collaborates with community members to design, incubate and replicate neighbourhood-based interventions that address health conditions that disproportionately affect minorities.  Recognising the complexity of the economic and social determinants of health, they partner with a wide variety of grassroots and institutional organisations to reduce health disparities and improve outcomes for underserved groups. The Community Health Empowerment (CHE) model guides and unifies all their work.  

About THE UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences. 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.) 

For the latest UWI News, click http://sta.uwi.edu/news.

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