Co­or­di­na­tor of the Cari-Bois Youth Jour­nal­ism Project, Tyrell Git­tens, says ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents from schools in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties was the project’s chief goal. De­liv­er­ing clos­ing re­marks at the ini­tia­tive’s third cy­cle where 20 stu­dents from schools across T&T were award­ed cer­tifi­cates, Git­tens said the three-year pro­gramme aimed to build re­search and writ­ing skills while rais­ing cli­mate aware­ness.

Git­tens, who co­or­di­nates The Crop­per Foun­da­tion’s Cari-Bois En­vi­ron­men­tal News Net­work, said every el­e­ment of the Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber 2024 and Jan­u­ary to April 2025 cy­cles fol­lowed the ex­am­ple set in 2023. Schools were cho­sen from rur­al dis­tricts to broad­en ac­cess be­yond so-called pres­tige in­sti­tu­tions and to reach com­mu­ni­ties most ex­posed to cli­mate threats.

“Form Four pupils were se­lect­ed be­cause they are not yet im­mersed in ex­am­i­na­tion prepa­ra­tion but are se­nior enough to share lessons with peers,” Git­tens said.

Pre­sen­ters de­liv­ered on­line ses­sions on jour­nal­ism ba­sics, cli­mate con­cepts and writ­ing prac­tice. Field vis­its took stu­dents to Lopinot, Wa-Sama­ki Ecosys­tems in Freeport and WHY­FARM in Siparia to con­nect class­room learn­ing with re­al world con­di­tions.

Dur­ing the term, each par­tic­i­pant pro­duced ar­ti­cles on weath­er shifts, bio­di­ver­si­ty loss, agri­cul­ture and the 2024 UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence. Ed­i­tors pro­vid­ed in­di­vid­ual feed­back on struc­ture, sourc­ing and clar­i­ty.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of The Crop­per Foun­da­tion Cherisse Braith­waite-Joseph said, “This project is about more than pro­duc­ing con­tent or up­dat­ing a web­site. The Cari-Bois Youth Jour­nal­ism Project, and the Cari-Bois Net­work more broad­ly, is about build­ing nar­ra­tive pow­er. Our goal has al­ways been to ex­pose young peo­ple to ca­reer path­ways in jour­nal­ism and en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­ence while giv­ing them the tools to take mean­ing­ful cli­mate ac­tion.”

Dis­trict gen­er­al man­ag­er of Sco­tia­bank, which sup­port­ed the ini­tia­tive, Michelle Eligon said, “Cli­mate change im­pacts the world, but its im­pact on Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States, such as those in the Caribbean, is par­tic­u­lar­ly se­vere. Rais­ing aware­ness of the ef­fects of cli­mate change, as well as iden­ti­fy­ing pos­si­ble mit­i­gat­ing strate­gies through the work of young cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists, is a project we are proud to get be­hind.”

“We hope some pupils pur­sue jour­nal­ism,” Git­tens said, “but more im­por­tant is that they ap­ply re­search tech­niques and crit­i­cal read­ing to ex­am­i­na­tions and school-based as­sess­ments.”

Git­tens urged stu­dents to cul­ti­vate read­ing habits and treat Eng­lish as an es­sen­tial tool whether they plan ter­tiary stud­ies, skilled trades, en­tre­pre­neur­ship or cre­ative work. He en­cour­aged re­flec­tion on goals and civic con­tri­bu­tion.

“You will write Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil pa­pers in one year,” he re­mind­ed stu­dents. “The de­tail and dili­gence you bring to that chap­ter will shape the jour­ney ahead.”