Creativity of youth shines

The Biocultural  Education and Research Programme recently announced the winners of its SustainaBIM video competition, which  was designed to target the youth and give them a voice on issues of food and nutrition security.

Nicole Sealy, Programme Assistant at the Biocultural Education and Research Programme (BERP) had high praise for winners Brandon Squires of Queen’s College and Sandana Thorpe of Combermere, who were recently presented with their prizes, for their part in the 2021 SustainaBIM Schools Competition, in the 11-13 and 14-18 age groups respectively. Participants were meanwhile encouraged to be as creative as possible in describing how fruits and vegetables could be used to create a more sustainable Barbados, via a short video of no more than five minutes, on selected topics.

The wider SustainaBIM national initiative seeks to promote conservation of the local plant stock, whilst the schools competition was designed for greater youth involvement, to provide an opportunity for young people to explore and expand their knowledge and experience with growing and using local fruits and vegetables in a sustainable manner.

Following the recent presentation of prizes to the winners on location at Andromeda Botanic Gardens, Sealy gave The Barbados Advocate some background details about the SustainaBIM initiative for the youth.

“In this year 2021, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation launched the International  Year of Fruits and Vegetables as an appeal to improve eating habits, to encourage sustainable food production and reduce food wastage.

So we at the Biocultural  Education and  Research Programme, we wanted to start an initiative that would engage the youth and get them to talk about fruits and vegetables, about sustainability and creating a different type of market in Barbados, where people grow their own food and get food from their neighbours and such like,” Sealy indicated.

“So  I decided, along with the help from Dr. Sonia Peter (Executive Director of BERP), that I would come up with SustainaBIM, a competition for students. It would encourage them to create videos about their favourite fruits or vegetables, talk about different eating habits, the use of fruits and vegetables, and to hopefully engage them and encourage them to find out more about plants that are grown right here in Barbados and hopefully, to stoke some kind of inspiration among the students that will work hard towards greater sustainability,” Sealy explained.

To date, Sealy is happy with the response given to SustainaBIM and the creativity and knowledge displayed by local youth, when it comes to the topic of sustainable living.˜