Today, The United Nations Association of T&T (Unatt) joins with the global community to celebrate World Environment Day. On this day, the organisation takes the time to recognise its collective responsibility for the Earth, its natural resources, and to become stewards for change.
Unatt seeks to combat climate change issues through a renewable energy project which aims at the sensitisation towards these concepts within various schools and communities throughout T&T.
Unatt, with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP), began implementing a Renewable Energy (RE) Project titled Mainstreaming Renewable Energy Resources and Raising Youth Awareness in Schools and Community Service Organizations in Trinidad and Tobago.
This project is an extension, by replication and upscaling of a previously successfully completed GEF /SGP project in 2012—Mainstreaming Renewable Energy Resources in the Secondary School Laboratories and Raising Youth Awareness on Diversified Renewable energy (RE) Solutions in T&T.’
The project has three main objectives which include: 1—Installation and operation of RE systems as practical examples in schools and on the premises of community service organisations which will serve as demonstration centres. 2—Sensitisation to RE concepts to the wider public through knowledge management tools (fairs, workshops and media) and 3—Education and training of youths involved in the project to the RE industry.
The project is currently in stage one, the most recent activity included the installations of seven solar units. Four of them were conventional solar panel units, at Goodwill Industries, where the school has utilised their solar units to fuel their current aquaponics system and three were solar-charging stations, at Birdsong Academy, where youths were able to charge their cellphones.
Today, in commemoration for World Environment Day, Unatt is playing its part by showcasing the successes of the project thus far and raising awareness of Renewable Energy (RE) concepts and the impact this change can have on climate change, not only in T&T, but on an international scale.
This RE project is aligned to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) formulated by the United Nations and is specifically connected to the recently signed Paris Agreement on Climate Change (signed on Earth Day–April 22, 2016) which stemmed from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21).
Unatt members and invited guests are visiting one of the soon-to-be-installed sites at Toco Composite School, where they will tour the location and showcase its possible impact on the school and students.
For more information about the project and how to get involved, please contact: Rhona Harris (Unatt secretary), 106 Woodford Street, Newtown, Port-of-Spain
• Email: unatt60@yahoo.com• Website: http://www.unassociationtt.org/ To enquire on applying for GEF SGP grant funding, please visit: http://www.tt.undp.org/or www.facebook.com/GEFSGPTT. Applicants can contact the GEF SGP via email on registry@undp.org.tt or call 623- 7056 ext 252 or 254.