The University of the West Indies (UWI) has launched its annual Global Giving campaign, seeking to engage students, partners, diaspora and friends to contribute to strengthening and supporting the regional university. UWI Global Giving officially launched on August 1 and is focused this year on helping to raise $1 million for the University’s Open Campus Endowment Fund. Throughout the month of August, those interested in giving to this important campaign are invited to visit www.uwi.edu/giving; every gift counts.
Since 2008, the UWI Open Campus was established as a virtual campus concurrently with physical site locations serving 17 English-speaking Caribbean countries, from Belize in the West to Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean.
The Open Campus provides a flexible learning environment for online, blended and continuing professional education and is UWI’s 21st century answer to meeting the region’s learning needs and pioneering online access to education.
Many Open Campus students are academically outstanding, but lack the resources needed to complete their education as they continue to face severe financial challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic.
This includes many students from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines who suffered unimaginable losses when La Soufrière erupted in 2021 and some are at risk of not being able to complete their degrees. There are several other heart-wrenching individual stories from Open Campus students across the region.
Given its mandate to facilitate and increase access to higher education in the Caribbean, UWI remains committed to leaving no student behind. This annual UWI Global Giving crowdfunding campaign is an initiative to raise funds to support students in financial need.
Over the past six years, it has become part of the UWI culture. Under the theme “Emancipate, Educate, Give”, the campaign begins each year on August 1, known in many Caribbean countries as Emancipation Day, marking the freedom of enslaved Africans who were victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. While UWI honors and pays tribute to that past, it recognizes that education is one of the most critical tools for freedom and fostering regional development.
According to UWI’s Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director of the Open Campus, Dr Francis O. Severin, “The Open Campus has always been guided by its philosophy of ‘Opening Doors to Lifelong Learning’ and has historically embraced the mission basic access. This prompted us to launch the Social Mediathon on 30 July 2022 towards raising half of the target for the Endowment Fund, aimed at helping our most vulnerable students to fulfill their educational hopes and aspirations.
We are overwhelmed by the tremendous response so far and thank our distinguished graduates, the distinguished Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda, His Excellency Sir Rodney Williams and the President of Barbados, Her Excellency, the Most Honorable Dame Sandra Mason, to be together. -The matrons of our Social Mediathon.
The Social Mediathon and UWI Global Giving 2022 demonstrate the ONE UWI philosophy—the entire university system supporting the cause of our Open Campus students. We call on everyone, corporate and individual, to give like they’ve never given before. No gift is too small.”
The official UWI Global Giving platform is www.uwi.edu/giving. However, individuals or corporations seeking more information, or wishing to make an alternative contribution to UWI Global Giving, may contact the Division of Institutional Advancement in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor at 876-977-0052 or by email [email protected] (PR)
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