By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Friday 1st March 2019)-Participants and facilitators of a recently held two-day Environmental Sustainability and Conservation Leadership Training, held at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine in the West Farm community, have been applauding the foundational interactive brainstorming and hands-on training exercise aspects of the first in a series of planned activities.
For that back to back session, conducted on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th February at the school’s Medicine Research & Pathology Building, topics explored included The Art of Decision Making, Strategic Approaches To Inspire Action and Building Your Own Harm Reduction Team.
Funding was made possible through a grant received from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in collaboration with the USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
As understood, a participatory approach has been chosen to bring persons from various sectors together to draft a comprehensive conservation plan which is aimed at reducing impact on the Narrows Marine Managed Area by engaging people, businesses and communities. Notably, the Narrows describes the channel which separates the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis which can be identified in the area of Booby Island.
Participating institutions are Ross University, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Canadian Wildlife Health Corporation, Caribbean Youth Environment Network/Ripple Institution, Department of Environment, Department of Marine Resources, Department of Agriculture, Department of Youth Empowerment, Department of Tourism and the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College.
Lead facilitator was Luis Cruz, a Ross University professor and Researcher of Human Behaviour in positive ways concerning conservation and environmental sustainability assisted by Craig Stephen, Head of the Canadian Wildlife Cooperative and a professor of population health.
Here is what some of the participants had to say following the workshop:
Shaquana Jeffers
“The workshop for me was a success and I’m proud to have been here. As a student at the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College who studies Environmental Science, it was a learning experience for me as it covered some of the things that we need to know based on our syllabus. Also, seeing that I am a person who loves the environment and I’m also a big animal lover, it taught me how to be a leader or future leader in conserving these stuff so that our generation or my children or my children’s children can enjoy these things so it as a pleasure being here.”
Locksley Edwards
“As a Marine Conservation Officer coming to the workshop, I was looking to see how it would help to motivate myself and my peers as most of what the workshop addressed is what we do on a day to day basis on our jobs so seeing the same information was more of an encouragement and motivation to show that even though sometimes we may think that 90 per cent out of a 100 it [a plan] won’t work, at least we know there’s a 10 per cent that it will work. Overall, therefore, this workshop came as a driving force to motivate me in knowing to push for that 10 per cent and that percentage could increase…so if we could tap into the resources- which the workshop is offering as a tutorial tools and knowledge- and we put this into an actual plan, the idea is to see if this plan will work, and so it would be an overall benefit that the workshop is progressive or positive and that the leadership skills that we will learn will come out of each one of us and benefit the environment, the community, jobs and us as individuals…”
“It’s not going to be easy but it’s worth it” was a saying by Locksley which resonated with participants and facilitators at the end of the workshop.
Mati Hanish (Ross University student)
“For me, it’s really neat to see people from all over St. Kitts, different parts of the government and different careers all come together to start working towards one common goal, the way that everyone found something; a way they could contribute because people really started to adopt the idea that as individuals, they might not be able to save the world but as a group, they can really make a huge difference in St. Kitts and future generations.
Victoria Cahill
“For me being a new student here at Ross [University] and on the island, it was really interesting to see where everybody comes from, their take on the community, everybody’s different perspective, different parts of the government that they come from, how it works and how they think that they can come together to make their one common goal work. As Locksley said, one quote of the weekend was: ‘It’s not going to be easy but it’s worth it’, and everyone has something different that they can contribute to their one common goal and they’re all pretty motivated to make it work and it’s super exciting.”
According to Professor Cruz, “the workshop was about how can we empower people to believe that they are leaders because that’s what this project is basing on; we all have powers to lead and that doesn’t mean we have to be loud or yell or move mountains, we can all influence others in our own ways, it could very small or it could be on large scales. So, we are using the science of behavior change; this is things that psychologists use, sociologists use and in environmental conservation [and] biology, and even though we are not any of that, we are veterinarians and we work on health, and health is not just the absence of disease, it’s about social factors, environmental factors and biological [factors]. It goes from how do we exercise, how much sleep we have, what decisions we do that affect our health so this project is how do we better understand human behaviour and how can we find positive ways to influence based on theory and knowledge that many people have been working on.”
He continued: “It is also about using a concept which is called Harm Reduction which in simple terms [identifies] is there is a problem?, [and if] there is a very big problem and acknowledge that we are not going to get rid of it right away but there are little things that we can start doing with the conditions that we have now and even though there are many people who may think differently, we need all those different state of minds to come up with one vision, one main goal that we share; something that we value and then we are going to increment steps, little goals that are going to be build up into the major goal so that at the end I think it went extremely well.”
Professor Cruz commended the participants for having taken the time out to attend the workshop. He said overall it was good whilst noting that the “participation and engagement was very high” on day two.
“I think we planted the seed that ‘yes we can be leaders and yes it is possible’ and as Locksley said ‘It’s not going to be easy but it’s worth it’, and if we have that mindset just by achieving this [then] that seed, that idea in our brains that it is possible that ‘I can get others onboard’ because other people might be thinking the same thing but it takes someone to show them that it is possible and the more of us showing that by example the more we are going to get and the better results,” he told.
Professor Stephens was also pleased.
“I was really happy to see different people coming together to not only learn about how to become more effective conservation leaders but actually come with a plan going forward to work together. That was an exciting outcome of the day. I’m also really excited to help Ross University work with the community and the citizens of St. Kitts to collaboratively help the… resources of the island,” he commented.
A roundtable discussion is the next scheduled session slated for Wednesday 6th March followed by a conservation tools and stakeholder engagement on Saturday 23rd March. A catamaran tour of the Narrows with stakeholders is expected to take place in April, a communications workshop in May with outreach efforts in June, July, August and September.