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Jamaica: an environmental competition in the schools
January 2000

By: Michael Siva, CERN correspondent, Jamaica

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A lot of the environmental problems that exist today are a result of people's ignorance. In particular communities and people are unaware of the possible results on the various ecosystems of certain of their practices. Quite a few people don't even care to know how important or how fragile the environment is and how they can protect it by just changing some of their habits.

The Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT) seeks to tackle this problem through children and schools. Three years ago JCDT introduced a national school environment contest, with the goal to encourage students and teachers towards positive environmental action through a number of practical activities.

The JCDT project manager, Susan Otuokan said that the competition aims to put what students learn into practice. "The contest came out of the concern that there is a lot of talk in environmental education programmes. People tend to visit schools and present slides, or give a talk, lead a discussion, suggest students what can be done, have poster competitions or essay competitions and so forth. But the real question, if anybody is actually doing anything, remains open.

"So therefore we started this project where students would be involved in doing very practical activities, which can be shown to their communities and be taken home to their parents and show them how they can change their behaviour."

Students are involved in recycling, the management of solid waste, the cleaning of the schoolyard, the making good use of solid waste products, organic gardening, the preparation of environmentally friendly pesticides and other such activities. The JCDT has spread the programme island-wide, by approaching schools through the various environmental organizations in each parish.

It also has a page in "the Children's Own", a weekly newspaper produced by the Gleaner Company and distributed to schools. A competition was promoted through this newspaper. Judy Lawrence, a member of the environmental group at Mount Alvernia High School in Montego Bay, said that she feels that the programme has had a positive effect on the girls in her school.

According to Otuokan, the JCDT got a lot of response especially from the rural schools. She said also that schools in Montego Bay do particularly well because of the work done by Environment Watch, a non-governmental organization based there.

"This competition project is really exciting! It is a good example of the positive effects of bringing together different groups of people. You have the schools with the students, the teachers, the principals, as well as community members and environmental groups like Environment Watch which already was working with 5 or so schools in the Montego Bay area. These schools have done very well in the competition because of Environment Watch' work and the environmental clubs existing in their schools."

In the first year, 23 schools participated. Now that number has grown to 65. There are categories for primary, preparatory, all-age and for high schools. One of the most successful schools is Cornwall College, which also is based in Montego Bay. Teacher Robert Gordon said that the school now has experience with changing some of the negative behaviour and practices and the level of awareness has risen greatly with these activities.

The competition biggest sponsor is Peat Marwick who contributed half a million Jamaican dollars. Smaller donations came from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica and from West Indies Synthetics which runs a recycling plant. Next school year, the JCDT plans to extend the competition by merging it with a similar one reaching 27 schools, and run by the Jamaica Environment Trust. It is hoped to have altogether as many as 150 schools participating in the next National School Environment Competition.

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In collaboration with the Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN), Panos produces a weekly 10-minutes radio series: "Island Beat - News from the environmental frontline of the Caribbean". It documents community environmental themes, in particular highlighting community experiences in finding solutions to environmental problems, reported by journalists from across the Caribbean region. This current print feature has been derived from a radio programme which was produced in August 1997.

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