As part of an initiative to showcase its rich heritage and culture, The University of the West Indies, Mona will launch an official Culture & Heritage Tour on Monday, July 14, 2008 at the Undercroft of the Senate Building, beginning at 9.00 a.m. The ceremony will be preceded by a performance of the Tivoli Marching Band and will be followed by an actual tour of the Mona Campus conducted by UWI students who have been trained as tour guides.

The UWI Mona Campus Culture & Heritage Tour as it will be known is being launched with sponsorship from the National Commercial Bank (NCB). NCB is also providing a specially designed tour bus and has funded the production of a Culture & Heritage DVD and a Virtual Reality Tour. The Virtual Reality Tour will be accessed from the UWI Mona website.  During the ceremony, the tour bus will be handed over to Mona Principal, Professor Gordon Shirley, by NCB’s Managing Director, Mr. Patrick Hylton. The bus will be used in the first official tour which will take place immediately following the launch ceremony.

The launch itself forms part of the programme for Students and Alumni Day, which is one of the events organized during Convocation Week, which is being observed July 12-19, 2008 as part of UWI’s 60th anniversary celebrations. At the end of the official tour, participants will be taken to the various Halls of Residence where a rich and varied programme of activities has been arranged for the benefit of visiting alumni.

 The arrangement with NCB for the UWI Mona Campus Culture & Heritage Tour was brokered by the Business Development Office at Mona. Under the terms of the arrangement, NCB will provide funding for an initial period of three years to facilitate visits to the Mona Campus for approximately 600 high school students, the majority of whom will be fifth and sixth formers from secondary high schools across Jamaica.

Visits will include tours of the many heritage and cultural sites at Mona, discussions with members of the academic and administrative staff as well as interaction with past students of the high schools who are currently at Mona. The aim is to provide the visiting students with a full understanding of programme and co-curricular offerings available at the Mona Campus at a time when they will be making decisions related to their pursuit of tertiary level education.

Tours will also be offered to local and international visitors to the campus. These tours will be marketed externally, primarily through the Jamaica Tourist Board,  and to tour companies and  hotels, as well as internally, to guests (resident  and non-resident) at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge,  and to organizers of conferences in the Kingston Metropolitan Area and the wider Jamaica. Tours may also be marketed through UWI-related associations in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom.  Arrangements for the tours will be made through the Public Relations Office, UWI, Mona Campus.

Public Relations Office
UWI, Mona Campus

July 11, 2008