With many countries still exploring offshore oil reserves in the Caribbean, and the recent spill in Curacao, advancements by the sustainable energy sector, such as this collaborative & inter-disciplinary workshop brings hope! The Barnacle Grenada reports on three regional workshops on sustainable energy held September 10 -14, 2012 at the Marriott St. Kitts Resort in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis:
Three organizations working under the umbrella of two EU-funded initiatives, namely, the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Program and the Caribbean Renewable Energy Capacity Support (CRECS), co-hosted the workshops. They were attended by official delegates from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The first workshop from September 10-11, focused on building capacity for the design and implementation of sustainable energy and energy conservation awareness programs.
The second workshop on September 12, which was attended by government officials from Ministries responsible for Education, and energy and climate change, as well as science school teachers, reviewed the Caribbean Energy Awareness and Education Programme (CEEAP) and its campaign Learn and Save, and explored avenues for its expansion as a follow-up to the CSEP. The intention is that CEEAP would help to reinforce institutional and pedagogic capacities to integrate in the curriculum, the importance of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
On September 13 and 14, a Teacher’s Sustainable Energy Workshop was held. The session was attended by government officials from the Ministries of Education and science school teachers. This session consisted of lectures and hands-on exercises in renewable sources of energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation. In addition, a package of educational materials and toolkits were handed-over to the six independent OECS countries and the Bahamas.
The workshops were led by Dr. Alexandra Daval, an expert in Information and Communications and Mr. Jonathan Rand, who has taught thousands of teachers and students about wind energy, and has facilitated teacher workshops on renewable energy science across the United States as well as Canada, Costa Rica, Chile and Ireland. “We are pleased to bring to the region the extraordinary skills and experiences for the workshop leaders together with the deeply committed education and energy sector representatives of the Caribbean to help expand clean energy educational practices,” said Mark Lambrides, Energy and Climate Change Mitigation Section Chief at the OAS.
