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Earth Today | Environmental club programme for Clarendon, St Catherine schools

Published:Thursday | January 2, 2020 | 12:00 AM
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Annicka Grant, conservation technician at NEPA, guides participants through an activity at the launch of the National School Environmental Club Programme.
Natasha Parchment-Clarke, manager of training, food and beverage operations and environmental programmes at Rainforest Seafoods Ltd, hands over Rainforest Seafoods kits to students from Vere Technical High School at the launch of the National School Environmental Club Programme.
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THE NATIONAL Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) recently launched the National School Environmental Club Programme (NSECP) in several Clarendon and St Catherine institutions.

Inactive environment and science clubs are to be strengthened through the provision of guidance, technical support, print resources and access to external environmental stakeholders under the programme.

The NSECP targets, in the first instance, secondary schools operating within St Catherine and Clarendon. They are Jose Marti Technical High, Innswood High, Jonathan Grant High, St Catherine High, Old Harbour High, Central High, Glenmuir High, Vere Technical High, Foga Road High, and Bustamante High.

“The NSECP was created based on the results of a survey of active and inactive environmental clubs that identified a need to provide students with opportunities to channel their desires for a greener, healthier Jamaica, in keeping with NEPA’s mandate to provide environmental education to all Jamaicans,” said Travis Bartley, public education and community outreach officer at the agency.

The launch took the form of a workshop and was used, according to Bartley, “to empower club leaders to become better environmental stewards in their local schools and communities”.

Participating schools were provided with a personalised Environmental Club kit containing promotional items, garbage bags for recyclables and non-recyclables, disposable gloves, a copy of the Environmental Club Pledge and environmental posters on protected and endangered species, NEPA’s Adopt-A-Beach programme and protected areas.

Schools were also given the Revised Guidelines for Environmental Clubs booklet produced by the agency, with permission from the authors and the Joint Board of Teacher Education; and trees donated by the Forestry Department. Rainforest Seafoods donated reusable bags along with promotional items to help the schools reactivate their once-dormant clubs.

“I’m looking forward to our club making better connections with companies that can help us to grow. With more interest and exposure, we will be able to get more students to join and care about the environment,” said one student from Jonathan Grant High School.

School visits will be used to monitor the NSECP as NEPA guides the clubs through intensive projects focused on the topic of pollution prevention during 2020.