Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd has launched three so­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty pro­grammes in a bid to make its con­tri­bu­tion to­wards in­creas­ing food se­cu­ri­ty, ad­dress­ing cli­mate change and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.

On Wednes­day, Her­itage launched Here We Grow, Her­itage Out­reach to Max­imise En­vi­ron­men­tal Ex­cel­lence (HOMEE), and Her­itage In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Train­ing (HITT) at the Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, #4 Road, Los Charos, Pa­lo Seco. 

La Brea MP Stephen Mc Clashie said the launch was a pos­i­tive step for the com­pa­ny as it sought to es­tab­lish it­self in the com­mu­ni­ty as he ac­knowl­edged his con­stituen­cy had ben­e­fit­ed from sup­port from oil com­pa­nies such as Trin­topec and Trin­toc.

“I ex­pect to see a lot of ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly around the farm ini­tia­tive and train­ing of those 50 peo­ple in the first co­hort. The HITT pro­gramme, which is the IT train­ing pro­gramme is al­so go­ing be quite in­stru­men­tal,” said Mc Clashie.

“I think in com­bi­na­tion the two pro­grammes re­al­ly will en­hance the lives of the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty and I re­al­ly thank Her­itage for tak­ing that ini­tia­tive and bring­ing these pro­grammes,” he said.

Ar­lene Chow, CEO of Her­itage,  said the com­pa­ny could not ig­nore its own so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Chow not­ed that the HOMEE pro­gramme was par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant giv­en the in­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns about cli­mate change as well as the gov­ern­ment’s own com­mit­ment to re­duce car­bon emis­sions.

“The im­pact of en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and cli­mate change is even more se­vere. In small is­land de­vel­op­ing states like ours, we are see­ing record rain­fall and flood­ing that was re­al­ly bad that oc­curred in our coun­try in No­vem­ber.  It was ter­ri­ble. It’s a stark re­minder of the ev­i­dence of cli­mate change and es­pe­cial­ly its im­pact on small is­lands like us.

“And if you look at Cal­i­for­nia right now, and you see the news, they are re­al­ly flood­ing out in the most ex­pen­sive ar­eas. And so all of us none of us are im­mune to this. These re­cent events re­al­ly give us the im­pe­tus and oth­er coun­tries to to­wards greater di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, in­no­va­tion, and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” said Chow, who added that the Here We Grow pro­gramme could be cru­cial to ef­forts to im­prove food se­cu­ri­ty. The pro­gramme will see Her­itage pro­vide seedlings as it en­cour­ages par­tic­i­pants to cre­ate their own gar­dens.

“I love to plant and it struck me that when you said eat what you grow, is that peo­ple don’t do that. Be­cause grow­ing up in a coun­try, that’s what you do. And so this here we grow is ac­tu­al­ly pro­mot­ed that again, those things that you used to do long time you eat what you grew,” said Chow.

Her­itage’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Ar­lene Gorin-George said this gen­er­a­tion has a crit­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take care of our en­vi­ron­ment so that it can be hand­ed over to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions and as such Her­itage was do­ing its part.

“We are res­olute at Her­itage to work and part­ner with you to make the changes that are re­quired in or­der to en­sure that we have a bet­ter, a brighter and more sus­tain­able fu­ture for all of us,” Gorin-George said.