A two-day workshop which targeted an estimated 40 residents from communities north of the Rabacca Dry River, the Red Zone, wrapped up on Thursday, November 24. {
The workshop was held under the umbrella of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network- CYEN and its Climate Justice Awareness drive among indigenous communities.
Held at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Sandy Bay and hosted by the Sandy Bay Heritage Organisation, the Workshop had as its main facilitator Dr. Andrew Simmons – Climate Change expert.
“The campaign is all about what we are trying to do in the Caribbean to raise the awareness of young people, indigenous and marginalized people, so that they can prepare themselves to deal with the impact, they can build their resilience and so on to deal with these things,” Dr. Simmons outlined.
He underscored the scientific conclusions that the “Caribbean produces less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change, but experience its heaviest losses and damage”.
The workshop brought together youth leaders, leaders from faith organizations and other community influencers with the intention of building awareness on climate change stressors and calamities, and identifying actions which can be undertaken for adaptation and the building of resilience.
Another outcome was the identification of areas around which climate change adaptation projects can be developed to generate self-sustaining activity in these communities.
The conclusions from the workshops are being reproduced in a final report that will be part of deliberations at a CYEN one-week forum scheduled to take place in Trinidad during the first week of December, 2022.
The participants were also involved in the creation of seven layers of climate risk maps which will be incorporated into the local National Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data base, and will be available for use by Government and agencies such as the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO), Dr Simmons explained.
The Workshop in St. Vincent and the Grenadines followed on similar CYEN-sponsored workshops in Belize, Dominica and Guyana where large indigenous communities reside.
According to Reginald Burke, Executive Coordinator of the Barbados headquartered CYEN, “One of the most vulnerable sections of populations of the region are the Indigenous Peoples who are often forgotten or spoken about like extinct relics from history.
“They are often side-lined in national, social and economic policy frameworks and, as a consequence, tend to live on the margins of society where they eke out an existence that places them at the lower echelons of economic power in the society.”
CYCN intends, through its activism, to enable the people of these communities to rise above these circumstances
