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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 14 JULY 2019
SUNDAY 14 JULY 2019 – UWI TODAY
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At 4 o’clock every morning, Michael Bristol
travels from
his home in La Fillette, on the north-eastern coast of
Trinidad, to The UWI in St Augustine where he studies
computer science. After classes, he travels back home and
tutors the children in his village for their CSEC and SEA
exams. The next day, he does it all again and has been doing
so for a year.
Michael isn’t a story we tell children when they
aren’t being appreciative of what they have, he’s real. He’s
also ambitious and aims to be a respected member of
his community. He wants to improve the world through
software design and development. He wants to become a
pilot. Any or all of the above would be satisfactory, in no
particular order. Michael believes he has far to go but at 21
years of age, look at how far he has come.
At 12, he joined the Trinidad and Tobago Cadet Force
and spent the next seven years learning the principles of
discipline and respect. At 16, he helped his parents run
a small business, an Internet cafe based in La Fillette, a
much needed service for the area. At 19, he was the first
youth officer to be made drill sergeant of his battalion at
the Cadet Force.
At UWI, at age 20, he built and launched two mobile
apps along with two classmates, Amanda Seenath and Azel
Daniel. Those apps, The UWI GPA Calculator and The
UWI Shuttle Routing Tracking System, are still available
for download on the Play Store. At 21, he started a sole
trader, Brissk Software Solutions, providing customised web
services to clients in Trinidad as well as Tobago. “Michael
have it nice”, you might think, but that’s far from the truth.
Michael has been a recipient of financial funding
via The UWI’s Adopt-A-Student programme since 2017.
Recommended by a member of staff, he has been using
the monthly bursaries to primarily help offset the cost of
transportation to and from campus for the last two years.
Although there is a stigma associated with the need for
financial assistance, Michael believes that by acting as an
ambassador for the programme and sharing information
about the benefits, he can make a positive impact on the
lives of fellow students. He has already noted an increase
in attendance from students who once cited lack of
transportation funds as their reason for missing classes but
who became recipients of the fund themselves.
The UWI’s Adopt-a-Student programme has been in
operation since 2005 and, to date, it has provided financial
assistance to over 500 students. It is funded by the personal
contributions of the University’s academic, administrative,
and technical services staff members. Adopt-a-Student is
one of the financial assistance funds offered by UWI St
Augustine’s Division of Student Services and Development
(DSSD).
Meet Tanisha Lewis, a 34-year-old mother from
Arima. She has worked at The UWI for 13 years and firmly
believes in giving back to her community. She volunteers at
graduation. She collects plastic waste after campus events
and deposits them personally in the appropriate recycling
Avah Atherton is a short story writer and aspiring cultural archivist based in Trinidad and Tobago.
bins. She is currently the Senior Student Services Assistant
at the Guild and she leaves her door wide open for students
to feel welcome. From the near-constant traffic in and out
of her office, they do.
Tanisha has been contributing to the Adopt-a-Student
fund for the past 12 years and has made a point of increasing
her contribution every time her salary increases. Her
monthly subscriptions are considered as important as her
STUDENT CENTREDNESS FEATURE
STUDENT CENTREDNESS FEATURE
It Takes a Village…
UWI’S ADOPT-A-STUDENT
PROGRAMME
B Y A V A H A T H E R T O N
Michael Bristol
PHOTO: AVAH ATHERTON
Dr Deirdre Charles, Director of the Division of Student Services and Development (DSSD).
PHOTO: ATIBA CUDJOE
Preparing
them for
life
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
STUDENT CENTREDNESS:
The UWI will ensure that its policies,
governance and daily operations are geared towards the delivery of an
exceptional teaching and learning experience for all students.
Taken fromThe University of the West Indies’ Core Values
You want to attend The UWI but you can’t afford it, any
of it.
You’re a UWI student and the pressures of life have left
you anxious or depressed. You’re living away fromhome for
the first time on a hall of residence and you aren’t prepared.
You’re thinking about your career options after graduation
and you don’t know how to proceed. You’ve been a student
most of your life, and nothingmuch else, but you want more,
for yourself and society.
Campus life is a time of incredible opportunity. For
many it is also a frightening time of difficulty and need.
Thankfully, students at The UWI St Augustine have an
incredible resource to support them on their higher
education journey - the Division of Student Services and
Development (DSSD).
“We are charged with looking after the student life
experience,” says Dr Deirdre Charles, Director of DSSD. “We
collaborate and link with faculties to ensure that students
get a holistic experience of university life and make the best
of that experience.”
A huge mandate and, with eight departments and a
staff of 125, DSSD strives to meet the needs of every kind of
student. The Office of the Director focuses on the Division’s
strategic direction and is only responsible for the First
Year Experience (FYE), UWI’s massive student orientation
initiative.
The other seven departments are Career, Co-Curricular
Development and Community Engagement; Financial
Advisory Services (which deals with scholarships,
bursaries, other financial support and advice); Students
Activities/Facilities and Commuting Students; Student Life
and Development (including services for students with
disabilities); Student Accommodation; Counselling and
Psychological Services (CAPS); and the Office of the Guild
of Students (headquarters for student government).
Each department offers a host of services and
programmes. FYE alone has 21 programmes. “Touch each
student once”, a phrase coined byDSSDManager Kathy-Ann
Lewis, exemplifies DSSD’s vision. Students thinking about
their future careers are touched by programmes like World
of Work. Those looking for fun and enriching campus life
activities can be touched by Miss UWIverse, and many
others. Those with emotional trauma receive the touch of
counselling and therapy sessions, and on and on.
Considering the comprehensive purview of her
division, it would not be unreasonable to expect Dr Charles
to be a remote administrator, operating in her office and in
meetings. The students tell you differently. She is a familiar
presence in their lives. In fact, her approach is remarkably
personal.
“For us at DSSD, we are humans first,” she says. “We
have to be passionate and we have to feel our purpose. I
come from a small island, Saint Lucia. Leaving Saint Lucia
and going to study abroad for all my degrees showed me
the importance of having that kind of support. It showed
me the importance of having empathy for somebody who
is coming into a new culture. You may be local and from
deep South but when you come to our space, you have to
feel like you have landed home. You have to feel that you
have made the right decision to become part of our higher
education population.”
Time and time again, that personal aspect has been
most rewarding for the staff of DSSD. Dr Charles has several
stories of the division’s intervention in the lives of students
that made a profound positive impact. She recounts the
story of a brilliant young medical student from Dominica
who lost her brother to cancer at an early age and then her
older sister to the disease. Through her own strength and
determination, with support from DSSD, she went on to
achieve First Class Honours.
Another student who grew up an orphan in a Children’s
Home, made it to UWI, but found herself without a proper
place to live and study. DSSD intervened and found her a
place on one of the halls of residence where she was able to
successfully complete her degree in medical sciences.
A third student lived with his brother in a shack in the
woods after the deaths of their parents. He wanted to come
to UWI to study engineering but he couldn’t afford it. DSSD
stepped in again and helped him achieve his engineering
degree. Today he does scale modelling of homes. His career
is taking off.
“We have these courageous stories,” Dr Charles
exclaims. “We tend to forget because there are so many
students and somany stories. Years later youmay be out and
a student will walk up to you and remind you. They might
say something like ‘what UWI did for me then made a big
difference in my life’. For me, that’s priceless.”
In recounting these stories, the DSSD Director is
quick to point out the role of the students themselves, the
determination they show in their particular circumstances.
The greatest support DSSD can give a student is helping
them achieve personal development.
She goes on, “higher education should not just be about
getting a degree that says I amexcellent in some field of work
or study. It is about becoming well-rounded and ready to
take on the next phase of my life. We know the students are
bright but we want the other aspects of development. We
want them to be able to organise and problem-solve. We
want them to volunteer. We want them to understand the
importance of being in a group and staying in a group when
the dynamics of the group aren’t functioning properly. We
want to create leaders.”
Apart from the intrinsic benefits of personal
development, this approach gives graduates an advantage in
their post-university lives. Dr Charles says employers reach
out to the campus to tell them they don’t necessarily want
a first class honours student. They want a “well-rounded
student”.
The DSSD Director stresses that students see and use
their time at university for their holistic growth. The long-
term benefits are enormous:
“You may not see the importance of it now but, trust
me, it is so invaluable. Take advantage of this opportunity
that you have been given. Once you come into a higher
education space, say to yourself, ‘I am here to develop the
whole of me’.”
“The UWI’s Adopt-a-Student
programme has been in
operation since 2005 and, to
date, it has provided financial
assistance to over 500 students.
It is funded by the personal
contributions of the University’s
academic, administrative, and
technical services staff members.”
bills, something she just has to do without question.
Recently, Tanisha was invited to meet some of the
students who have benefitted from the programme. She was
not ashamed to say “I cried” at that meeting. She knows,
fromher daily interaction with students, howmany of them
struggle to have their basic needs met, especially regional
students who do not have the advantage of GATE funding.
Tanisha believes that she can help make a difference and
so she does.
Well known in her office for her philanthropy, she has
been encouraging her friends and colleagues to commit
to the fund. “Even one dollar could make a difference to a
student,’’ she says and clearly believes. She doesn’t stop at this
programme though and has found funding for one student
who could not afford the late registration fee and another
who needed to buy lab equipment.
Tanisha is a force of nature in her own right with an
awe-inspiring drive to be of service to others.
Be a Tanisha – for all theMichaels at UWI St. Augustine.
Members of staff of
The UWI
or readers of
UWI Today
interested in making a contribution to the
Adopt-a-Student
fund
can do so by contacting
