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Monday, June 9, 2025

UWI Guild focuses on mental, financial health of students

by

Joel Julien
1372 days ago
20210905
President of the Guild of Students at the University of the West Indies’ St Augustine Campus Kobe Sandy

President of the Guild of Students at the University of the West Indies’ St Augustine Campus Kobe Sandy

With the new aca­d­e­m­ic year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ (UWI) St Au­gus­tine cam­pus set to be­gin to­day, pres­i­dent of the Guild of Stu­dents Kobe Sandy yes­ter­day said that the as­so­ci­a­tion will en­sure that the men­tal health and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty of stu­dents are pro­tect­ed.

Sandy made the state­ment dur­ing a vir­tu­al ad­dress broad­cast yes­ter­day.

He said be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic the last five se­mes­ters at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus was plunged in­to an un­prece­dent­ed era of teach­ing and learn­ing.

“Our lec­ture the­atres were shut down and the very pulse that beats with­in the cam­pus’ spir­it was snatched away in a mat­ter of sec­onds by this dread­ed pan­dem­ic. We thought by now, we should have re­turned to meet and greet each oth­er and the on­ly so­lace we have is the mem­o­ry of the last time we graced the pres­ence of St Au­gus­tine,” he said.

This year the Guild cel­e­brates its 60th an­niver­sary and Sandy said de­spite the on­go­ing pan­dem­ic the “Guild Fest” will be launched in a few weeks.

“In times of dark­ness, light shall al­ways ap­pear, and the Guild of Stu­dents would be rolling out a com­pre­hen­sive stu­dent wel­fare plan this aca­d­e­m­ic year. Cog­nisant of the Eco­nom­ic Burnout re­sult­ing from COVID, we are res­olute in our cause to not leave any stu­dent be­hind. This plan will in­volve ad­dress­ing is­sues of food in­se­cu­ri­ty, the dig­i­tal di­vide and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. We will ad­vance the need for en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion and pro­vide a stim­u­lus to cre­ate stu­dent-led busi­ness­es that will re­move de­pen­dence in­to self-re­liance. Our Stu­dent Wel­fare task­force will be es­tab­lished to pro­vide a work­ing pol­i­cy on how we can ex­e­cute our wel­fare agen­da for all our mem­bers,” he said.

Sandy said that the pan­dem­ic has tak­en a men­tal toll on stu­dents and the Guild has put the men­tal well-be­ing of stu­dents on the top of its agen­da.

“Our first man­date is to en­sure your men­tal health is pro­tect­ed and se­cured, we will po­si­tion our­selves to ad­vo­cate that all poli­cies com­ing out of the cam­pus whether it be teach­ing and learn­ing modal­i­ty, stu­dent ac­com­mo­da­tion, labs and practicums, stu­dent fi­nanc­ing and more are stu­dent-cen­tric and re­flec­tive of our cur­rent cir­cum­stance,” he said.

“As I said be­fore and I will say again, the Guild will not play Russ­ian roulette with the lives and liveli­hood of our mem­bers, we will not sit light­ly and wit­ness the men­tal de­struc­tion of any stu­dent. We have al­ready start­ed to ad­vance to the ad­min­is­tra­tion to pro­vide more re­sources to the Coun­selling and Psy­chi­atric Ser­vices Unit for ex­pan­sive pro­grammes to meet your men­tal need and pro­vide safe spaces for all. We will retro­fit our pro­grammes with­in the Guild to pro­vide mean­ing­ful cop­ing mech­a­nisms as you nav­i­gate on­line learn­ing in a pan­dem­ic,” Sandy said.


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