The One UWI Responsible Futures Programme (OURFP) Student Sustainability Strategy

Overview of initiative

The OURFP Regional Director communicated to the University of the West Indies (UWI) Students Today, Alumni Tomorrow (STAT) regional ambassadorial Corps that a student leadership strategy was needed to support this programme and circulated an example for input and modification. The Corps worked with the Guild Presidents (who are ex-officio UWI STAT Ambassadors) to have this taken to the five Inter-Campus Guild Councils and the rest of the student body. This led to approximately four months of online discussions across the five UWI campuses (in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Global, Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados). The strategy was officially implemented on 27 January 2025.

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‍Impact of initiative

This was a very useful exercise as students gained the opportunity to delve deeper into how holistic sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals could be integrated across the UWI system and what would work in each campus and country given cultures, facilities and resources. It also helped them understand how to create a strategy that is adaptable overtime as the UWI sustainability context evolves in the future.

The OURFP Champion, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles noted that it was

"a singular honour and privilege to ratify and sign the OURFP Policy developed by The UWI’s student leaders."

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Role played by Responsible Futures

The RF criteria that served as a catalyst for the activities are listed below:

• LS006 - The institution and student leadership group have a whole institution sustainability strategy (or equivalent).

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Additional comments

The Regional Director was pleased by the level of ownership understanding, collaboration and support that this exercise brought to the fore among student leadership.

For more details on the development of this policy, please read this UWI Global Alumni blog post.