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UNC Youth Arm calls on UWI Guild to be more Sensitive and Diverse
Posted On 17 Sep 2014
The Youth Arm of the United National Congress wishes to express its appreciation for the timely intervention of UWI Principal Professor Clement Sankat over the proposed Post-Budget discussion hosted by the UWI Guild of Students in partnership with the PNM Youth League.
There are many members of the UNC Youth Arm who are students at the UWI and the decision to host this one-sided political forum was insensitive and inconsiderate. No invitation was extended to the UNC Youth Arm to participate far less work with the guild to have a similar event. The claim by the Guild President that this was part of ‘a series of forums which aim to present every angle possible to the 2015 budget” is disingenuous and hypocritical.
The Guild was hosting a PNM political forum using student fees paid by students of various political affiliations to the exclusion of UNC students. The students guild should not allow itself to be manipulated and used in such an obscene manner.
The UNC Youth Arm has received numerous complaints from members who are UWI students about the growing perception of a political strategic alliance between the Guild and the PNM Youth League. Fears have been expressed that the Guild has become a political tool of the PNM and that it has alienated students of other political persuasions.
The Students’ Guild must be representative of the diverse nature of the student population it serves and it should not alienate students of other political persuasions. Thus the UNC Youth Arm calls upon the Guild to be sensitive to the need for inclusion and diversity in its events and affairs as such manifest political bias is not conducive to the growth and development of this important organization.
