Sean Mc Coon

With sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment at the core of en­vi­ron­men­tal poli­cies, it’s im­por­tant that de­ci­sion mak­ers pair these poli­cies with strate­gic ac­tion to suf­fi­cient­ly em­pow­er the next gen­er­a­tion to be en­vi­ron­men­tal cus­to­di­ans.

While this goal may seem elu­sive, it is pos­si­ble for chil­dren to be­come change­mak­ers who lead the charge – on en­vi­ron­men­tal caus­es – for the next gen­er­a­tion. In schools, chil­dren may be taught about lo­cal folk­lore char­ac­ters like Pa­pa Bois, who lives in har­mo­ny with the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment and serves as its pro­tec­tor.

But such lit­er­a­ture can al­so be con­sid­ered as a start­ing point to teach young chil­dren to be­come more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious and be­gin re­vamp­ing our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to be more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly fo­cused. With cli­mate change and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues ac­cel­er­at­ing at alarm­ing rates, a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to em­pow­er­ing the next gen­er­a­tion is need­ed with lit­tle to no time to waste.

Im­por­tance of be­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious

A chal­lenge faced in de­vel­op­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal poli­cies is not just pro­tect­ing the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, but al­so hav­ing an ef­fec­tive en­force­ment sys­tem where jus­tice is served against those who per­pet­u­ate harm­ful or detri­men­tal acts in or around the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment. The in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing of waste at the foothills of To­ba­go’s Main Ridge For­est Re­serve can be used as an ex­am­ple to show this dis­crep­an­cy. While it is ex­pect­ed that sol­id waste will be gen­er­at­ed, il­le­gal dump­ing and oth­er un­sus­tain­able en­vi­ron­men­tal prac­tices should not be.

In such a sce­nario, it may be com­mon to point fin­gers at the le­gal frame­work or the ‘pow­ers that be’. But in ac­tu­al­i­ty, struc­tures to ad­dress such is­sues al­ready ex­ist and it is of­ten a lack of en­force­ment which leads to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of un­sus­tain­able prac­tices. Ef­fec­tive­ly util­is­ing the coun­try’s pro­tec­tive ser­vices, and per­haps even those that are charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing gate­keep­ers for en­vi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion, is need­ed. How­ev­er, these ac­tions will be fu­tile if cit­i­zens aren’t al­so more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious.

Re­vamp­ing goals of “ed­u­ca­tion”

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has been brand­ed as a tool by which a per­son can climb the eco­nom­ic lad­der. As such, some chil­dren may on­ly see ed­u­ca­tion from the per­spec­tive of gain­ing ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions. While it’s de­bat­able whether this ap­proach to the out­comes of a com­pre­hen­sive ed­u­ca­tion is healthy or not, it can­not be ig­nored that ed­u­ca­tion is al­so a tool for re­form, ed­i­fi­ca­tion and em­pow­er­ment.

Our lo­cal ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can no longer “boast” of be­ing a blend of that which was hand­ed down from the colo­nial past and sev­er­al cul­tur­al­ly sub­merged norms and prin­ci­ples. Greater fo­cus should be placed on re­vamp­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to be used as a tool to make chil­dren more aware of their du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious cit­i­zens and adopt en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prac­tices.

Our chang­ing world, and its en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges, re­quire the need for re­vamp­ing how we view ed­u­ca­tion. There­fore, it is im­por­tant to in­sert prin­ci­ples that en­gen­der a sense of pride and pro­tec­tion for the en­vi­ron­ment. Ed­u­ca­tion should now reaf­firm in the minds of young chil­dren that there is im­por­tance in pro­tect­ing, pre­serv­ing and con­serv­ing na­ture.

Ex­ist­ing so­cial struc­tures key to re­form

Ex­ist­ing com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives like po­lice youth clubs and en­vi­ron­men­tal groups should be con­sid­ered when re­vamp­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem be­cause they al­ready have ex­pe­ri­ence in cre­at­ing com­mu­ni­ty-based projects, which can be good prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence for chil­dren.

In­volv­ing chil­dren in com­mu­ni­ty projects such as the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of phys­i­cal spaces can be piv­otal to teach­ing them to have greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in en­vi­ron­men­tal cus­to­di­an­ship. Tools which can al­so be used to teach chil­dren more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able prac­tices can in­clude:

Cre­at­ing food banks to teach the val­ue of fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy through crop cul­ti­va­tion on a small scale.

En­cour­ag­ing “trade ne­go­ti­a­tions” be­tween var­i­ous groups to teach chil­dren sus­tain­able liveli­hood prac­tices. Ide­al­ly, food and agri­cul­ture stake­hold­ers should al­so play a cru­cial role in the move­ment to com­bat cli­mate change, pover­ty and hunger.

In­cor­po­rat­ing sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture in­to a re­formed ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem aligns with the Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment goal.

If chil­dren can see that there are fi­nan­cial in­cen­tives in sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al ven­tures, there is the ad­di­tion­al ben­e­fit of them be­ing en­cour­aged, as­sist­ed and guid­ed in the di­rec­tion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Youth and cli­mate ac­tion

As the rate of cli­mate change con­tin­ues to ac­cel­er­ate, it is im­por­tant that young peo­ple and chil­dren con­tin­ue to lead dis­cus­sions, spread aware­ness, mo­ti­vate oth­ers to take ac­tion and take ac­tion them­selves.

In To­ba­go, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use the afore­men­tioned po­lice youth clubs and com­mu­ni­ty-based groups to ad­vance the par­tic­i­pa­tion of youths in the cli­mate fight by de­vel­op­ing their skills, tal­ents and or­a­to­ry prowess (as done in the Youth As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture ses­sions).

In do­ing so, or­gan­i­sa­tions like UN­ESCO, UNICEF and UNDP may al­so be in­clined to sup­port, whether it be fi­nan­cial­ly or oth­er­wise.

Time for youth em­pow­er­ment

Pro­mot­ed through ac­tiv­i­ties that help young peo­ple de­vel­op so­cial, eth­i­cal, emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal, and cog­ni­tive com­pe­ten­cies, youth de­vel­op­ment is a process that pre­pares a young per­son to meet their full po­ten­tial.

In­cor­po­rat­ed in the youth de­vel­op­ment process are lessons on youth lead­er­ship which sup­ports young peo­ple in as­sess­ing their strengths and weak­ness­es, set­ting per­son­al and vo­ca­tion­al goals and hon­ing their self-es­teem and con­fi­dence.

A com­pre­hen­sive youth de­vel­op­ment frame­work al­so as­sists young peo­ple in de­vel­op­ing their abil­i­ty to guide or di­rect oth­ers on a course of ac­tion, in­flu­ence opin­ions and be­hav­iours, and serve as a role mod­el.

What bet­ter cause than the en­vi­ron­ment to cre­ate role mod­els and he­roes?

Young peo­ple can now take up the man­tle of those who have gone be­fore us to cham­pi­on ef­forts that may seem min­i­mal from the face of it, but in the long term, be a shin­ing bea­con of hope.

Sean Mc Coon is a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Writ­ers Guild. If you would like to know more about the Guild or to be­come a mem­ber you can con­tact 1(868)620-5799 Trinidad­To­bagoWrit­ers­Guild@gmail.com or on Face­book or In­sta­gram