BNNCDE P.9

2005/2006

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

BOARD FOR NON-CAMPUS COUNTRIES AND DISTANCE EDUCATION

May 15th, 2006

Outreach to the UWI 12

This report is taken from a webpage maintained by the Office: http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/outreach.htm.

We do not list here the Distance Education activities carried out by several Departments through the UWIDEC or independently, nor the occasional "monitoring" visits provided for TLIs that are franchising UWI programmes. This list is concerned more with occasional rather than regular activities: lectures, workshops, research projects, consultancies, etc.

2005 – 2006

Amongregionally focussed activities at the campuses, we may mention that the Centre for Gender and Development at St Augustine organised between March 19th-25th 2006 an intensive one-week gender training course. The course was offered to advocates, practitioners and academics in the field of gender and development to strengthen their analytical understanding of gender as well as their skills in the areas of policy formulation and application. About 25 participants from across the region participated in the course, 7 of whom came from non-campus countries.

Dr Keith Miller from the Department of Surveying and land Information (St Augustine) has been working with the Director of Surveys of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago on improvements to the national geodetic infrastructure. Using funding provided by the InterAmerican Development Bank, a contract to install five sites across the islands is being undertaken by a commercial consortium comprising Fujitsu, Spatial Innovision and Trimble. Similar activities are going on in Jamaica and bids are being sought to undertake installation work in the Bahamas, but the distribution of stations regionally will still be sparse.

Dr Miller is now working with staff at the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) project that is being run from the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) to install further stations regionally in Belize, Dominica, St Vincent and Antigua. It is anticipated that the CCCCC will act as a data distribution centre for all data acquired regionally, which introduces a further complication of data transfer throughout the Caribbean. Staff from the Seismic Research Unit at UWI have experience in this component and their skills have been offered to the project. The data provided by the CORS network offers advantages to their activities in measuring the deformation of volcanoes and they have further agreed to undertake servicing of some of the instrumentation as part of their ongoing maintenance.

To further ensure sustainability of the stations it is desirable that governmental and commercial users situated locally make use of the data. To increase awareness and to identify advantages for relevant agencies within these sectors, a workshop was delivered at the Department of Surveying and Land Information, UWI from 5th to 12th August 2005 with funding provided by the MACC project. Twenty two surveyors attended representing eight states from the region, namely: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. The workshop was delivered jointly by Dr Miller and staff from Spatial Innovision Ltd. with presentations by staff from the Seismic Research unit and the Petroleum Geoscience Unit within UWI. The programme included a significant practical content that was supported by technical staff and Graduate Research Assistants from the Department of Surveying and Land Information.

Anguilla

  • On November 25th, Professor Barriteau (Gender and Development, Cave Hill) delivered a keynote address, "A Continuing Serious Problem: Violence Against Women and the Need to Change Strategies to End Punitive Gender Relations" and organised and facilitated a workshop, "Reversing the Tide of Domestic Violence Against Women". These activities were undertaken in collaboration with the Family Hope Network and the Unit of Human Rights and Gender of the office of the Chief Minister and marked the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
  • A UWI/Government of Anguilla consultation was held here, March 22nd.

Antigua

  • A UWI/Government of Antigua consultation was held here, April 26th.

The Bahamas:

  • A UWI/Government of the Bahamas consultation was held here, March 13-14th.
  • A Country Conference is to be held here in June (8-9th).

Belize

  • A UWI/Government of Belize consultation is to be held here, June 12-13th.

British Virgin Islands

  • A UWI/Government of BVI consultation was held here, March 24th.

The Cayman Islands:

  • The Board for Non-Campus Countries and Distance Education met here,September 26th.
  • Sir Shridath Ramphal visited Cayman in October 2005 on the second round on the Chancellor's Forum.
  • For the first time in its 43 year history, the Social Welfare Training Centre, School of Continuing Studies, Mona Campus collaborated with the Department of Children and Family Services in Grand Cayman to offer the four month course in the Principles and Practice of Social Work. The
    course commenced in November, 2005 and concluded in February, 2006. The course is a generic one, designed to meet the needs of persons working in the field of human services, either as professionals or volunteers but who have not had the benefit of professional training in
    social work.

Dominica

  • The Centre for Gender and Development, St Augustine, was involved in the preparation of a draft National Gender Policy for the Commonwealth of Dominica: Professor Patricia Mohammed Ag. Head for the Centre was the lead consultant in the preparation of the Policy and Plan of Action. She was assisted in this project by Ms Deborah McFee, Graduate Research Assistant at the Centre. The policy required research and consultation in Dominica over a one year period. It was presented before the Cabinet by the lead Consultant on March 29th, 2006 and was very well received. This is the Centre’s second achievement in extending its services to its regional counterparts in preparing a National Gender policy, the other country being the Cayman Islands.
  • A UWI/Government of Dominica consultation was held here, May 11th.

Grenada

  • The UWI Medical Alumni Association held its 8th International Medical Conference in Grenada during the period November 8-13, 2005. The theme was "UWI and Medical Education for the Caribbean and the World in the 21st Century".
  • A UWI/Government of Grenada consultation was held here, February 22-23rd.
  • The Board for NCCDE meets here, May 15th.

Montserrat

  • A UWI/Government of Montserrat consultation was held here, April 28th.

St Kitts and Nevis

  • Dr Jessica Byron (Dept. of Government, Mona) participated in the Ninth Annual Development Conference of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Basseterre, St. Kitts, December 1 – 2, 2005. She delivered a paper on the topic “Have the Regional Integration Efforts served the Caribbean Civilization?”
  • A UWI/Government of St Kitts/Nevis consultation was held here, May 17-18th.

St Lucia

  • A UWI/Government of Saint Lucia consultation was held here, November 9-10th.
  • Galicia Blackman, an M. Phil student from St Lucia, is completing her degree under the supervision of Dr Paula Morgan (Liberal Arts, St Augustine) on Myth-Taking and Myth-making in Afro-Caribbean Women's Writing.
  • Dr Jean Antoine-Dunne (Literatures in English and co-ordinator of the film programme at St. Augustine) delivered The Derek Walcott Lecture in St Lucia during Nobel Laureate Week, January 2006. This lecture was entitled "Moving Beyond Poetry into the Heart of Time." It has since been published in The Trinidad and Tobago Review.

St Vincent

  • A UWI/Government of St Vincent consultation was held here, March 20th.

Office of the Board for NCCDE

May 14th, 2006