The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ (UWI) St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus has promised to con­tin­ue en­sur­ing they of­fer full ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion via the re­turn of UWI Fete next year.

Un­der the UWI De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund, the uni­ver­si­ty, for the past 30 years, has host­ed a se­ries of events that gen­er­ate funds for schol­ar­ships and bur­saries to ben­e­fit stu­dents. Com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als can al­so spon­sor grants and do­nate to­wards UWI’s phil­an­thropic ef­forts.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s UWI Fete 2023 launch at the cam­pus, Di­rec­tor of Di­vi­sion of Stu­dent Ser­vices and De­vel­op­ment, Deirdre Charles, shared the con­nec­tion be­tween next year’s all-in­clu­sive fete and UWIDEF.

“The fund’s pri­ma­ry fo­cus is ed­u­ca­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Once we are able to un­der­stand that we are a part of the com­mu­ni­ties that ben­e­fit and thrive from ed­u­ca­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, and em­pow­er­ment of our youths, then we will un­der­stand the true pur­pose of this event: The UWI Fete,” Charles said.

Apart from oth­er well-at­tend­ed events host­ed by the uni­ver­si­ty, such as the UWI Golf Chal­lenge, the UWI Fete re­mains a favourite for all at­ten­dees and spon­sors.

For­mer UWI cam­pus prin­ci­pal and T&T pres­i­dent Prof George Maxwell Richards, first con­ceived the idea of the fund as a means of keep­ing the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus afloat dur­ing its eco­nom­ic hard­ships in the late 1980s.

At the launch, new Pro-Vice Chan­cel­lor and cam­pus prin­ci­pal, Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, said the uni­ver­si­ty con­tin­ues to act on its promise to stu­dents to make ed­u­ca­tion ac­ces­si­ble to them.

“We can­not, must not, de­ny any of our bright and best the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn, to grow, and to achieve. This coun­try and this re­gion need them far too much,” she said.

A date for the fete was not an­nounced at yes­ter­day’s launch.