Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. Friday, September 13, 2019—Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, was visibly moved as he opened his Forum on the Hurricane Response in The Bahamas on Friday, September 13, 2019. Calling it a ‘zone of vulnerability and devastation’, he addressed the enormity of devastation, the magnitude of effort required to rebuild, and The UWI’s role in the context of post-colonial vulnerability.

The Vice-Chancellor and UWI teams had been and are in the affected islands working on the ground and with Government officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian which clocked winds of 220 and battered the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama for almost two days. Lecturers and graduate students of The UWI School of Clinical Medicine and Research have been providing family medicine to triage, treat, contain, and prevent diseases. They have also been manning the eight shelters which average 1500 evacuees each. Vice-Chancellor Beckles noted that the presence of The UWI on the ground so swiftly is indication of the institution’s agility and responsiveness.

Mr. Jeremy Collymore, Resilience Consultant/Advisor attached to the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, noted that Hurricane Dorian affected the north-western Bahamas islands for an approximate 68 hours, with the southern eye-wall planted over Grand Bahama for about 30 hours. “While,” he said, “the major population and resource centre were minimally impacted; the impacted areas were major contributors to the national economy.” He pointed out that detailed socio-economic impacts were in the embryonic stage of determination.

“During this recovery period,” Dr. Barbara Carby, Head of The UWI Disaster Risk Reduction Centre reflected in her presentation, “The UWI is ideally positioned to advocate for as well as action risk reduction and resilience building in support of longer term Sustainable Development goals.”

The UWI Mona Guild President, Christina Williams was clear in her call to action. “In 2018, on a Friday like this, a young 15-year-old by the name of Greta Thunberg started a strike in her country. It erupted in thousands of students across the world striking on a Friday and they termed it Fridays for Future – A stand against the climate crisis and the disregard by politicians and world leaders to climate change.” “As young people,” she said, “we need to also ensure that our countries are doing as much as they can to always have disaster reduction policies and also disaster reduction principles in place before there is actually a crisis to work on.”

The Vice-Chancellor-led team on mission in The Bahamas met with Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and his ministerial colleagues as well as the Recovery Planning Unit in the Prime Minister’s Office. The UWI has also been liaising with the Regional Response Mechanism, the UNDP, and other international agencies. The UWI’s response is focused on multiple areas, including psycho-social support, damage and impact assessment, hazard resistance and resilience, resettlement and relocation, coastal engineering, and environmental management.

Vice-Chancellor Beckles, Mr. Jeremy Collymore, along with Dr. Robin Roberts, Director, and Faculty Member, Dr. Catherine Conliffe of The UWI School of Clinical Medicine and Research, Dr. Michelle McLeod, of The UWI Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Management, and Dr. Cheryl McDonald-Sloley, Deputy Director Commercial Services Department, The UWI Open Campus all joined the Vice-Chancellor’s Forum by video conference from The Bahamas. The Forum was moderated at The UWI’s Regional Headquarters by Ambassador Dr. Richard Bernal, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Practice, Global Affairs. It was attended by staff, students, including a Bahamian student association contingent, partners and friends.

About The Vice-Chancellor’s Forum

As we mourn the human loss in Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands and lament their massive property destruction, the extreme vulnerability of our region is undeniably an existential threat caused by climate change and global warming. We continue to witness this truth in the extensive damage and tragic deaths caused by the growing intensity of hurricanes. The UWI remains committed to championing the proposition of a resilient Caribbean. This regional University has always borne the responsibility to serve the people of the Caribbean and, in this time of despair, is taking the moral and ethical position that we must provide leadership in responding with alacrity to the crisis and recovery phases. On Friday, September 13, 2019, The UWI convened a Vice-Chancellor’s Forum on Hurricane Recovery in The Bahamas, at The UWI Regional Headquarters in Jamaica and broadcast live on www.uwitv.org  and UWItv’s Cable TV channel on the Flow Network. The Vice-Chancellor’s forums, which first began in 2016, are part of an ongoing series which seeks to offer informed analysis, perspective and context to important developments in our region.

The full audio recording of the Forum is available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/54qpgptfpunvpj3/The%20Vice-Chancellor’s%20Forum%20on%20Hurricane%20Recovery%20in%20The%20Bahamas%2010000000_122702482438843_7354176179229348583_n.mp3?dl=0

The clip of the Vice-Chancellor’s remarks is accessible at https://www.dropbox.com/s/49cnzkwzlgcxbyj/The%20Vice-Chancellor’s%20Forum%20on%20Hurricane%20Recovery%20in%20The%20Bahamas%20VC%20Message.mp4?dl=0

About The UWI

For more than 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider world. The UWI evolved from a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally respected, regional university with near 50,000 students across five campuses: Cave Hill in Barbados; Mona in Jamaica, Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago; and an Open Campus with over 42 locations serving 17 Caribbean territories.

The world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education, has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for 2019, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean for 2018 and 2019. The UWI is the only Caribbean-based University to make these prestigious lists and is one of only two regional universities in the world (the other being the University of South Pacific).

As part of its robust globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa including the State University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and Sustainable Development; the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES); The UWI-China Institute of Information Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African and Diaspora Studies and the Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

The regional university offers more than 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate, and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. As the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost objective is driving sustainable economic growth and development. Visit www.uwi.edu.

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)