News Releases

UWI changes climate for secondary students

For Release Upon Receipt - August 18, 2014

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – In the 3rd year of the collaboration between the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH) and The University of the West Indies (UWI), and with support from the US Embassy, 15 secondary school students from Trinidad and Tobago completed a 5-week internship programme focused on climate change and public health. This internship programme introduced secondary school students to public health and climate change issues and the tools needed to effect change, inspiring them to pursue a career in public health. Over the course of 5-weeks, students were exposed to information and training on topics such as:  

 

  • Research methodology

  • Public health surveillance and opportunities to use climate information

  • Emergency preparedness

  • Basic data analysis related to disease control and climate change

     

    On Friday, August 22, 2014 students will present their research findings at the closing awards ceremony, at UWI’s, University Inn & Conference Centre, in St. Augustine, between 9am and 1.30pm.

    Founded in 1992 by the tennis champion and humanitarian, Arthur Ashe, in response to concerns about health care delivery in urban United States, the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, is located at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in multi-ethnic Brooklyn, New York, USA. The Institute collaborates with diverse community partners to design, incubate and replicate neighbourhood-based model interventions targeting health conditions that disproportionately affect minorities.

     

    In addition to its Brooklyn-based (New York) community health outreach initiatives and three-year Out of School Time (OST) health science enrichment programme, as a partner of the Brooklyn Health Disparities Center (BHDC), the Institute provides Brooklyn youth, interested in pursuing a health career, with an internship opportunity to engage in health disparities research. The Climate Change & Public Health Internship Programme for Caribbean Secondary School Students is an adaptation of the Institute’s novel Health Disparities Internship model.

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About The UWI

Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged, regional University with well over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with four campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Open Campus. The UWI has faculty and students from more than 40 countries and collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences. UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation. Website: www.uwi.edu

 

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

 

 

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