New UGSS President sparking impactful change

DPI, Guyana, Friday, November 15, 2019

Students attending the University of Guyana (UG) are now patting themselves on the back for electing Jafar Gibbons as their new University of Guyana Student Society (UGSS) President. Since being elected last October, Gibbons has immediately begun to spark impactful changes.

Among the issues he had pledged to address after taking office was the implementation of a bus service to uplift the students and take them to their various locations on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) at an affordable cost.

During an exclusive interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI), Gibbons said “just a day after being installed; we had the bus service begin the commute taking the students from the university all the way to Victoria. That has never before been done, and that also saves students four or five hours of travelling each day.”

He also noted the matter of hot classroom was also addressed. “We also got the Faculty of Social Sciences to install industrial wall fans in some of the classrooms.” He also disclosed that the university “is now benefitting from 100 megabytes of data instead of 15 that was previously utilised.”

The young man, who is a second-year student reading for his degree in International Relations, opined that over the years, the university students “were not represented well. For years we have been going to classrooms that are poorly ventilated… these are things we felt our representatives should have dealt with and they did not.”

However, Gibbons said that he is looking to change that narrative by getting the students of UG to fully participate in the process of change. “For the most part, we are looking to get students involved; we are primarily focused on student welfare. So, I do not think that is a matter that students will not want to be involved in,” he stated.

The UGSS President also plans to seek the support of alumni in crafting policies and making donations for the improvement of the student’s welfare. He said the students are beginning to see the benefits. “We also had the clubs collaborate on all the efforts so previously where clubs participated individually, we have now gotten them to collaborate on every effort,” he explained.

Gibbons made it clear that when his tenure is over, the impact must be seen and felt by everyone. “When I am finished, I want the next person that is going to take up the mantle as president to not only feel the effects of what we would have done, but to also see exactly what a student rep means… When we leave, it must be a standard to which successors are saying this is the standard and they have to maintain it.”