UWI students demand proper security

More than 200 University of the West Indies (UWI) students yesterday staged a demonstration against crime on the St Augustine campus.

They urged campus administration to provide proper security via recommendations submitted to the head of security, campus principal and deputy principal.

UWI Guild of Students president Jonathan St Louis-Nahous said students came out in their numbers to send a strong message to the campus administration that students do not feel safe.

St Louis-Nahous said a number of students have reported being robbed and assaulted.

He said the protest was held to show they stood in solidarity with the victims, to present suggestions at improving security and to urge campus management to respond to their recommendations.

“The students came out...to show that their safety is an important issue. We have been all hearing about the reports and the complaints with the security issues. Now it is time for us to show how important this is to us.” He continued, “This is our campus where we are supposed to come and pursue our education. We have the right to feel safe here, we have the right to be heard and the right for these reasonable requests.”

Guild PRO Nikoli Edwards said there are many entrance points on the campus which are not properly manned.

“We don’t want these things to be placed on with a bandage, we want long term solutions and it has to do with proper manpower on the St Augustine campus. Too many times you see incidents of crime and criminal activities taking place here and this has led to us, as the students, taking serious issues and deciding to stand up against this.”

He continued, “In addition to the security on campus, we want proper measures to be taken. We also have poor lighting on campus and it has been like this for far too long. You have evening students, especially, who are on campus late hours into the night and they don’t have proper lighting on campus. We also don’t have proper manning of the security shuttle on campus.”

He said students, who live off campus, are left to fend for themselves. Edwards said the administration needs to take a holistic approach in dealing with the issue of safety.