"To create and motivate change which strengthens Caribbean development and support for UN principles and goals."

Background/Summary

The United Nations Association of the University of the West Indies UNA-UWI is a new initiative, starting first on the Cave Hill Campus. UNA-UWI is an on-campus student organization designed to foster and enhance student involvement and knowledge on the principles, goals, programmes and projects of the United Nations.

UNA-UWI – Cave Hill will work with the Student Union of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus to promote social, community and volunteer services.

It will also collaborate with UNA- Barbados and other Caribbean UNAs, WFUNA, http://www.wfuna.org/, civil society and with wider UWI family on its campuses in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago as well as non-campus, Schools of Continuing Studies across the Caribbean. In developing its programmes UNA-UWI, Cave Hill will work in partnership with UN agencies based in Barbados which provide assistance to the OECS and the wider Caribbean.

Objectives

1. To disseminate information and foster public support for Principles of the United Nations Charter, UN programs, projects and activities.

2. To mobilize support from the UWI student population and strive for universal recognition and respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.

3. To promote unity and understanding among all individuals regardless of gender, race, age, ability, language, religion or political orientation.

4. To promote Caribbean Development and provide access to UN system knowledge products to the UWI student body.

5. To support achievement and maintenance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in collaboration with other national and regional voluntary organizations which support projects related to the work of the UNA.

6. To join with UNAs in the framework of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) to promote people participation and impact of global and regional level programmes and activities.

1. Planned Programme and Activities

a) Public Information/Awareness Campaigns through seminars, public forums, Model UN Events and the media on UN System activities.

b) Service and Outreach Projects to Schools, Children’s Homes, Homes for the Aged

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” < Read more >

Martin Luther King Jr