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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 1 JULY, 2018
SOCIAL OUTREACH
It was a Friday evening at FarmRoad,
the first Friday
after Carnival, movie night. At least that was the plan.
But members of the community were yet to show.
Movie night was a way for the UWI team that had
spent months gaining the acceptance of the people of
FarmRoad to reintroduce themselves after the lull of
Carnival. Like almost every other part of the Farm
Road project, the plan was created with the people
themselves.
The St Joseph Police Youth Club had loaned
them the equipment. A community member offered
electric power. One of the UWI students had designed
and printed movie tickets, and the entire UWI team,
accompanied by community liaison, went fromhouse
to house, inviting the people to come. But they had
not come.
For social workers, whose strategy is always
partnership with the community, it’s the risk they
face. The invitation from the community, once given,
can be taken away. “We set up but there was nobody
there,” recalls Samantha Mendoza, one of the project
coordinators. But suddenly, as the sun went down,
residents, young and old, began trickling in, carrying
their lawn chairs, blankets and mattresses. Then
the cars started pulling up. As the Savannah filled
up, members of the community made popcorn and
shared it around.
Lending a Helping Hand
UWI-Farm Road Collaborative Project is listening to what people want,
and helping some children in an underprivileged area of St Joseph
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
Movie night was a success. It was one of many
successes that are making up the slow, momentum-
building initiative known as the “UWI-Farm Road
Collaborative Project”. Although officially launched
in May of 2018, for over a year now the project has
been making gains built on innovative social work
community intervention methods.
Dr Cheryl-Ann Boodram, Project Lead and
Lecturer, Department of Behavioural Sciences,
views this as just one example of how citizen-driven
initiatives can be organized through partnerships with
the university.
On the fenceline
Formost people, FarmRoad St Joseph is littlemore
than a name from the news reports. It’s a strip of land
you see when coming up the bus route, sandwiched
between theWASAHeadOffice and the ValsaynWater
Works. Houses painted pale blue or yellow, girded by
walls of corrugated sheets, peak out from between
the trees. Farm Road is a community built in a forest,
surrounded by a concrete jungle.
The road itself winds its way past fields and schools,
until it emerges at the Southern Main Rd in Curepe.
One of FarmRoad’s most prominent neighbours is the
Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC),
home to UWI’s Faculty of Medical Sciences.
“Farm Road was chosen because of its unique
characteristics and geographical positioning as
one of UWI, St Augustine’s immediate fenceline
communities” says Dr Boodram. The UWI/ Farm
Road Collaborative Project comes out of the Office
of the Deputy Principal through the Careers, Co-
curricular and Community Engagement Unit. In
2017, a campus-wide committee was established to
plan a university-supported community initiative.
The goal was to promote the professional and personal
development of UWI students, as well as increase the
relevance and impact of the university’s work in ways
that provided direct benefit to communities. “The
Farm Road Collaborative is what UWI is about and
what social sciences are about,” says Professor Ann-
Marie Bissessar, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences
(FSS). “We want our work to go beyond theory. What
action can we take to make communities better?”
The project is university-ledbut has beendeveloped,
coordinated and implementedby a very small teamfrom
within the Social Work Unit – Dr Boodram, Mendoza
and (initially) two graduate students, Fidel Sanatan and
Avenida Stewart-Nanton. Dr Boodram is quick to point
out the enormous support of Lynette Joseph-Brown,
Programme and Research Officer in the Office of the
Deputy Principal and Kathy-Ann Lewis, Manager of
Careers, Co-curricular and Community Engagement.
Children came together to enjoy games and a Friday afternoon picnic
on June 8 as part of an ongoing social work project in Farm Road, St
Joseph, focussed on helping children to complete high school and
providing a safe space for life skills learning and play.
PHOTO: ANN ALI
