Green Teams and Green Teens at MAC-CSE campus.
PHILIPSBURG–Methodist Agogic Centre (MAC) is scheduled to implement a school-wide sustainable waste management project at its primary schools on June 1.
The initiative, called the “Green Dream” project, consists of green teams and green teens. It is aimed at providing students with an opportunity to learn the processes associated with the management of recyclable materials, and it will enable them to acquire skills necessary to become responsible managers, coordinators or scientists in the future should they decide to choose careers in the area of environmental science or other health-related fields of study. For the project, students are called student managers (green teens) and are responsible for managing what is termed “sustainable zones.”
They are colour-coded red, yellow, green and blue. The zones are identified through 3D computer-aided design drawings. Adults in the programme formulate the Green Teams consisting of the executive director, secretaries, coordinators, and school managers, cleaners, canteen, maintenance and teachers.
The Green Dream project is a volunteered based project that is structured to engage MAC’s administrators, teachers, students, secretaries, cleaners, canteen personnel and maintenance staff. Its structure calls for the participation of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC), Nature Foundation of St. Maarten, Parent-Teachers Associations (PTA), United Nations Education and Science Organization (UNESCO) and waste haulers such as Meadowlands and All Waste In Place, amongst others.
The initiative was established by Claude Javois in March of 2018 after he saw how much destruction had occurred in the country in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.
It is stated in a press release that UNESCO St. Maarten Secretary General Marcellia Henry reassured MAC school board that it has the full support of Sint Maarten National Commission of UNESCO, which will assist the schools with the successful implementation and execution of programmes and the acquisition of the necessary equipment, materials, and services needed to make this project possible.
Henry praised the core objectives of the Green Dream sustainable school waste management programme, which allows students to participate in a recycling /environmental process that will motivate them to formulate environmental solutions that can make the island a green environment for everyone. The programme’s emphasis on the need to conserve and sustainably use and manage our environment, ocean, and seas is in accord with the 2030 Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 14 and 15, in particular, Henry said. She lauded the goal of the programme to encourage students to develop responsible attitudes and behaviour towards the environment. Students becoming advocates for preserving, conserving and keeping the environments within their school, their home, community, the island, and the world clean is another positive outcome of this programme, she indicated.
The Sint Maarten National Commission of UNESCO congratulated MAC’s Executive Director Rose Coram-Hughes, management, teachers and students for implementing the sustainable school waste management programme at all of MAC’s elementary and secondary schools. The National Commission also recognized Javois as initiator and developer of the MAC school-wide sustainable waste management project. Javois studied Environmental Waste Management and did a comparative study on the sustainability of Dutch St. Maarten and French St. Martin for his Master’s degree thesis.
“As the first school board in St. Maarten to have all its schools accepted as UNESCO Associated Schools, and to undertake such a wonderful and impactful initiative at each school, within such a short time span, is impressive and commendable,” it was stated in the press release.
“The programme is an excellent model that all schools on the northern and southern side of the island can adopt as they too work towards implementing their own school waste management programme. The sustainable waste management project is unique in that it gives everyone an opportunity at the MAC schools to be involved in an in-school collection and sorting recycling process with the purpose of contributing to a cleaner school environment,” the release said.
MAC schools thanked the president, directors, coordinators, management, planners and workers of the Collectivity of Saint Martin for inviting its schools to participate in their World Environmental Day 2019 Recycling Festival on June 7 and 8, at the Marine Front, in Marigot, Saint-Martin. MAC singled out Environmental Director Monsieur Jose Carti and his assistant Jacquine Helissey for their hard work and for making it possible for the MAC schools to display their project at the World Environmental Day festivities. The MAC schools hope for a sustainable relationship with the Collectivity of Saint Martin in its participation in future sustainable activities.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/87946-mac-to-implement-sustainable-waste-management-project-june-1
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