News Releases

UWI to host Work-Life Balance Conference Connecting the dots: Work. Life. Balance. Ageing

For Release Upon Receipt - March 6, 2018

St. Augustine


The UWI Research Development Impact (RDI) Fund through the Institute of Gender and Development Studies and the Social Work Unit, will host the two-day conference: Connecting the Dots: Work • Life • Balance • Ageing on April 26 and 27, 2018 at the Teaching and Learning Complex, UWI, St. Augustine.

The conference is the culmination of the project led by Professor Patricia Mohammed and Dr Cheryl-Ann Boodram, ‘Work/Life Balance and ageing in Trinidad: studying the productivity and wellbeing of working men and women’. It aims at generating discussions on the challenges that now beset Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean and encourages the widest group stakeholders to address the policy and planning gaps in work, family and ageing. 

Interested persons are invited to attend the conference which will highlight discussions with various researchers, practitioners and agencies in the field of ageing, human resource management, policy and special interest groups such as the elderly and civil society.

Feature keynote speaker Professor Denise Eldemire, of the Shearer Centre for Ageing at The UWI’s Mona Campus will present on ‘Ageing and The Art of Living: A Doctor’s Prescription’. Other presenters include Francis Jones, Population Affairs Officer-UNECLAC; Dr Nelleen Baboolal, Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry; and Dr Camille Huggins, Home Manager and Social Work Lecturer.

The conference will also feature artistic presentations including film shorts and animation facilitated by the Department of Festival and Creative Arts. Two Open Microphone sessions are scheduled to facilitate expressing diverse voices and to encourage debate on a broad range of experiences.

The deliberations will grapple with the questions “what do most of us expect from our lives?” and “Is it practical at this time to hope for a balanced and relatively stress-free work life which allows for realistic family and leisure goals, with reasonable quality in living standards on retirement?”

Societies that have experienced a shift in age groups, with a longer expectation of life and expanding ageing population, a work force that is shrinking relative to the young and old populations have had to confront these issues with careful planning for futures.

Caribbean societies must now face the imperative of examining deficiencies in work life balance carefully and planning for sustained quality of life of all our populations while managing the productivity of those who are gainfully employed.

We therefore invite interested persons drawn from professionals in law, gender, social work, various ministries, non-governmental agencies and private industry to register and attend this conference.

For more information on Connecting the Dots: Work • Life • Balance • Ageing worklifebalance.tt@gmail.com or call (868) 662-2002 Ext. 85282; Mobile 868 791 5230.

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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, The 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, Social Sciences and Sport. The 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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