The Caribbean Community has continued its assistance to its member state Haiti, following the devastating earthquake of 12 January, through the education system in the Region.
Eighty Haitian University students are completing their courses of study at the Mona, Jamaica, and St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, campuses of the University of the West Indies (UWI), while Mona Campus librarians have been involved in the training of Haitians in that field, a release from the CARICOM Secretariat stated.

The UWI participated in early assessments on the ground following the earthquake as part of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) team and focused on short-term and emergency relief mechanisms.
And, in mid-March, Vice Chancellor of the UWI, Professor E. Nigel Harris, as President of the Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutions (UNICA), convened a meeting of that regional body at the UWI St Augustine Campus which included four UNICA Haitian institutions, the State University, Quisqueya University, Notre Dame University and University Caraïbe, to determine their post-earthquake needs.
A UNICA Task Force for Haiti was established which would coordinate the UNICA response for an initial period of one year.
Committed to offering a scholarship programme to offer assistance to students close to completion of their degree and in September, the UWI Mona Campus welcomed 26 Haitian scholarship students from the Université d’Etat d’Haïti (UEH) on full scholarships to complete their studies at Mona for one year.
The Haitian students are all living in Halls of Residence on the campus and participating in daily English classes to improve their language competence. They have all been warmly received by the students on the Mona campus.
Meanwhile, French majors and Creole-speaking students from Saint Lucia have been assisting the Haitian students and the International Students Office (ISO) has been coordinating the campus efforts in that regard, the release added.
The students are located in several departments, including Linguistics, Pure and Applied Sciences, History and Archaeology, Psychology, and Economics.
Following the completing of the scholarship programme in Jamaica, the Haitian students will return home at the end of the academic year to Haiti, where they will receive their Bachelor degrees from the UEH.

The St. Augustine Campus offered tuition and accommodation to 70 Haitian students from the State University and 54 of those students arrived in mid-September. Forty-one are in Engineering, 12 in Agriculture and one in Management Studies.  The students are all expected to be at St. Augustine for one semester and the International Office at St. Augustine is coordinating the initiative.  Also involved in this project are the Centre for Language Learning, Saint Lucian and other students who speak Creole, the Guild of Students, and the Vice Chancellor’s Ambassadors (UWISTAT).
The Campus has donated tuition, accommodation and cash (through internal fundraising efforts) to the students, and with the help of the Chairman of the Campus Council, Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams, a strong fund-raising drive has been made with the local private sector to cover remaining expenses.  Substantial funds have been raised from a range of local organisations, including the donation of a chartered flight from Caribbean Airlines to bring the students from Haiti to Trinidad, but the figures still fall short of what is required for the immediate 54 students.
The Campus is eager to accept the remaining 16 students (in Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine) but this is dependent on additional funding required to cover travel and other expenses. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has been approached for funding assistance to support the UWI scholarship initiative.
Meanwhile, the UWI is also engaged in other projects with Haitian Higher Education Institutions. These include a Teacher Education by distance programme under a UWI Open Campus/ Université Quisqueya partnership, and a Project in Urban Planning under a UWI St Augustine / Université Quisqueya partnership, both with seed money from the International Association of Universities (IAU).