A grant totaling $660,000 over three years has been awarded to the University of the Virgin Islands to help fund an ambitious outreach project to at-risk youth as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Family and Community Violence Prevention Program.
The award will allow UVI to establish a Family Life Center to work with 50 at-risk boys and girls from Kirwan Terrace Elementary School and the New Horizons Alternative School.
"I believe it's an opportunity for UVI to make this community a better place," said Doris Battiste, associate chancellor of UVI's St. Thomas campus and principal investigator for the grant. "The University can make a difference in reducing violence in our society."
The Family Life Center will be based in the Kirwan Terrace housing development with space donated by the V.I. Housing Authority. It will aim to reduce violent or antisocial behaviors and to help students cope with academic, social and family stress by offering tutoring, individual mentoring, work internships and career counseling, family counseling, and recreational and cultural enrichment field trips. Children from 11 to 16 years old will be aided by a staff that includes a director and prevention specialist, counselors, tutors and teachers.
Part of UVI's mission is to provide community outreach, a goal the University had previously achieved through the UVI Mentoring Program, which will continue.
The center will be a partnership between UVI, the V.I. departments of Health and Education, the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce, the V.I. Housing Authority, the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands and the Reichhold Center for the Arts.
UVI's grant application was submitted in July. The application contained national statistics on juvenile crime as well as local statistics compiled with the assistance of the V.I. departments of Public Safety and Human Services, school principals, the V.I. Department of Education and the Youth Rehabilitation Center on St. Croix.
UVI will receive $220,000 initially, with the grant to be renewed the following two years.
"We needed to show that there is a problem in the territory that is not being addressed," Battiste said. She also provided statistics on juvenile incarceration to bolster the University's grant application. "I see what's happening with our young people—particularly our young males—and we have to do something. We are losing them. "
For more information on the Family Life Center, call Battiste at 693-1120.
