On April 12, 2025, The University of the West Indies (UWI) Five Islands Campus turned out over 100 participants for a landmark community-wide clean-up organized through its flagship First Year Experience Programme, pulling more than 4,000 pounds – equal to 2 metric tons – of waste from public spaces across the Five Islands region of Antigua and Barbuda.
The cross-group collaboration brought together incoming first-year undergraduates, tenured and junior faculty members, campus administrative staff, local community residents, and corporate sponsors to rejuvenate high-traffic public areas. Volunteers split into coordinated teams to cover three key stretches of coastline and roadway: the corridor linking Pensioners Roundabout to Green Apple Cafe, the route from Royalton Antigua Resort’s back entrance to Green Apple Cafe, and the coastal stretch from Hawksbill Beach to Green Apple Cafe. This targeted coverage addressed areas popular with both locals and tourists that had accumulated excess waste over recent months.
Campus leadership framed the event as far more than a one-off environmental action, positioning it as a concrete demonstration of the institution’s pledge to act as a responsible, embedded partner to the community that hosts its campus. The First Year Experience Programme, the framework behind the initiative, was designed specifically to ease new students’ transition into higher education, with core priorities spanning academic preparation, personal growth, and intentional cultivation of civic duty. Unlike traditional first-year orientation programming that focuses solely on on-campus adjustment, this model prioritizes experiential learning outside the lecture hall, pushing students to engage with pressing local social and environmental challenges from their very first semester.
Rhajhel Brown, the programme’s coordinator at the Five Islands Campus, expanded on this educational mission in comments after the event. “The First Year Experience Programme is built around out-of-classroom learning, designed to help our new students adapt not just to the demands of university academics, but to the real-world challenges that shape our community today,” Brown explained. He also highlighted that the clean-up would not have achieved its large-scale impact without support from regional partners, naming Royalton Antigua, the Akhimo Group, the Rotaract Club of Antigua, Adoptacoastline, Green Apple Café, and the Governor General’s Deputy Sir Clare Roberts as key contributing collaborators.
Senior campus administrators echoed Brown’s enthusiasm, emphasizing that the event reflects a long-term institutional commitment rather than a temporary public relations exercise. Dr. Camille Samuel, Campus Registrar, noted that the clean-up offers clear proof of the positive contribution the UWI Five Islands Campus makes to surrounding neighborhoods. “The Five Islands Campus has already left its mark on this community, and we hope our faculty, staff, and students will keep working to improve the place we call home,” Samuel said. She added that campus administration will continue allocating resources and support for future community engagement projects, framing the 2025 clean-up as one part of a sustained, ongoing effort to lift overall quality of life for residents of the Five Islands community and the wider nation of Antigua and Barbuda.