News Releases

UWI Athletes tell students “You can be a scholar and an athlete”

For Release Upon Receipt - May 26, 2015

St. Augustine


Regional UWI athletes donate books to Primary Schools 

ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – In keeping with the St. Augustine Campus’ mandate to provide avenues to engage with the wider community, this year’s UWI Games provided an avenue for regional UWI athletes to give back. For the first time in the history of the UWI Games at the St. Augustine Campus, an outreach initiative called the “U+We Read: Crossing Borders” was introduced; requiring that each campus make a book donation to one of four selected Primary Schools in the St. Augustine area.

Today, four delegations of approximately ten students of the four campuses – St. Augustine, Mona, Cave Hill and the Open Campus, visited St. Benedict’s Boys RC Primary, Curepe Vedic Primary, Riverside Hindu School and Maracas SDA Primary schools for a book reading to the students and donation of the collected books. This activity forms part of the campus wide “Service Learning and Community Engagement: A New Agenda for Higher Education and Learning” initiative, commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Principal in 2009 geared towards training students to become civic minded citizens.

At the Riverside Hindu School, participants of the campuses interacted with a group of  Standard Two students and read the book, “Tilly the Turtle” by Trinidadian Clive Borely, before officially donating approximately forty books to the school’s library. “Tilly the Turtle” was just one of the many books by local and regional authors that was donated, as this was the preferred choice for the book drive that led to the donation. Tilly’s story addresses several environmental issues, specifically the hunting of leatherback turtles, which made for an engaging discussion of the topic with the children. The regional contingent asked the youngsters questions on the story and stressed the importance of reading, encouraging them to play a sport in order to be well rounded individuals. As some parting words of advice, Open Campus footballer, Janiel Van Horen advised them “You can be a scholar and an athlete too; I am living proof of that.”

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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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