Pro-vice chancellor and principal of University of the West Indies (UWI), Prof Clement Sankat is calling on the public to lend assistance to help cover the $3 million cost that is needed to host 200 Haitian students. These students, he said, were accepted to complete their final year of tertiary education at the UWI St Augustine campus. Sankat made the call yesterday, during a news conference on UWI for Haiti, a fund-raising drive for the UWI/Haitian Student Fund, at the Central Bank, Port-of-Spain. Sankat said since the devastating earthquake in January, the regional UWI had been lending support in an effort to re-build the tertiary education sector and help with the mid to long-term recovery and reconstruction in Haiti.
"In our continued effort, UWI decided to host 200 displaced Haitian university students to complete their studies at the three resident campuses in Trinidad (St Augustine) Jamaica (Mona) and Barbados (Cave Hill)," he said. Sankat said UWI had offered 200 places to Haitian students with the St Augustine campus accepting the responsibility for 75 of these places. "We have already pledged over US$730,000 out of the US$1.3 million required to bring and support 70 Haitian students to the St Augustine campus," he said. The St Augustine campus has also committed to meet the tuition and accommodation costs but more assistance was required for the students' airfares, living expenses and study materials at an estimated cost of US$6,500 per student or about US$500,000 for the group.
Sankat said, however, that a number of organisations from the private sector had responded positively already. At the conference, representatives of United Way, Republic Bank, SM Jaleel, RBTT and EXIM Bank all presented cheques totalling $513,500 to the UWI Haitian Student Fund. Sankat said he was appealing to the Government, private sector, "our alumni," staff and students as well as the civil society to pledge their assistance in this worthy cause. He noted that the staff and students had contributed a total of $215,000 which $90,000 was collected for the UWI St Augustine Haiti Relief Fund and $125,000 in the UWI Haitian Students' Fund. Also in attendance was Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams who also made the appeal for the public to assist.
Williams, who is also the chairman of the UWI Campus Council, said the launch was very timely as Haiti was no longer occupying the front pages. But Williams said even though he understood that the world had other challenges to deal with, including the oil spill and, locally, the severe drought and the impact of the most serious flooding in decades, the Haitian reality remained the same. He noted that more than 1.5 million people were still living in tents, formal education at all levels was at a standstill, where 90 per cent of university buildings destroyed, 40 academics and more than 200 university students were killed and donors were lagging behind with their pledges.