By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Wednesday 31st August 2022) — A young woman in her 20s to older women in their 60s and older have had a hands-on experience among seven participants — five females and two males — during an upcycling workshop which was the last phase of The Green Alliance Project of the Alliance Française & St. Kitts-Nevis, in collaboration with the National Skills Training Programme (NSTP), supported by the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme. Facilitators were Allan Herbert, a carpentry and joinery trainer at NSTP, and handyman James Arthur.
Alliance Française director Marine Moncaut said the seven-day workshop was mostly to give practice to NSTP students and was not opened to the public like previous workshops. She was amazed by the mix of participants: “I was so amazed when the group came because it was surprising to see women in that field and it’s awesome.” Twenty-year-old Junicia Caines, who holds an Associate’s Degree in architecture from CFBC, said: “These that I’m doing now are actually angles for the garbage pan so I was able to use a bit of my architectural knowledge and incorporate it with getting my hands dirty, and that is actually something that I love to do.” During the workshop, participants made stools, flower pots, benches, rotating picture frames and garbage area angles from recycled wood donated by Admiral Enterprise. Moncaut explained the entrepreneurship component: “On top of having skills in carpentry and joinery, we want the trainees to also start a new niche of entrepreneurship so that they can find material low cost or at $0 cost and start to think of options of renewing and giving these materials new life through upcycling.”