Ben­jamin Hutchin­son

This is the fourth edi­tion of a sev­en-part se­ries fea­tur­ing sec­ondary school stu­dents pro­vid­ing their thoughts on En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial, and Gov­er­nance (ESG) is­sues as part of the HAR­CON Na­tion­al Youth Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and ESG Pi­lot Project

Grow­ing up on a Caribbean is­land like Trinidad is some­thing tru­ly spe­cial. The green hills, the beach­es, the rivers, and the warmth of the peo­ple make it a place full of life and beau­ty. But re­cent­ly, that beau­ty feels threat­ened. The floods are get­ting worse, the dry sea­sons are longer and the weath­er is more ex­treme. As a young per­son, it’s hard not to feel wor­ried.

That con­stant fear about what’s hap­pen­ing to our plan­et is called eco-anx­i­ety. I know I’m not the on­ly one feel­ing over­whelmed by it. What makes it even hard­er is know­ing that we in the Caribbean are not the root cause of this prob­lem, yet we are among the first to suf­fer its ef­fects. This can lead to a sense of help­less­ness, like noth­ing we do will make a dif­fer­ence.

That changed for me at school. At Trin­i­ty Col­lege, through the HAR­CON Na­tion­al Youth Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and En­vi­ron­men­tal So­cial and Gov­er­nance (NY­SESG) pi­lot project, we launched the MO­KA Ini­tia­tive. It is fo­cussed on cre­at­ing a last­ing cul­ture of en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and it has helped me move from anx­i­ety to ac­tion.

We start­ed projects like de­vel­op­ing a sus­tain­able gar­den, in­tro­duc­ing a com­post­ing sys­tem to re­duce waste, and set­ting up a rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing sys­tem to con­serve wa­ter. Along­side these, we learned the val­ue of sim­ple, every­day ac­tions, such as turn­ing off lights when leav­ing a room, con­serv­ing wa­ter, re­duc­ing plas­tic use and be­ing aware of our car­bon foot­prints.

At first, these seemed like small ef­forts. But over time, they’ve helped build a strong cul­ture of sus­tain­abil­i­ty at our school. This mind­set didn’t re­main con­fined to the class­room—it ex­tend­ed in­to our homes as well. My friends and I now have con­ver­sa­tions with our fam­i­lies about sav­ing en­er­gy, grow­ing food, and min­i­miz­ing waste. We’ve come to re­al­ize that mean­ing­ful change tru­ly starts with us.

These ex­pe­ri­ences have sig­nif­i­cant­ly helped with the eco-anx­i­ety I once felt. I still care deeply and re­main con­cerned about cli­mate change, but now I feel em­pow­ered to take mean­ing­ful ac­tion. These projects have giv­en me a sense of pur­pose and have shown that even as stu­dents on a small is­land, our ac­tions mat­ter.

I be­lieve ini­tia­tives like the MO­KA Ini­tia­tive shouldn’t stop with us. This mod­el could be ex­pand­ed across schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and even the wider Caribbean. If every school em­braced projects like these, we could fos­ter a cul­ture of en­vi­ron­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty from a young age. It would go be­yond class­room learn­ing and be­come a way of life—liv­ing the change we hope to see.

Even though we are young, we are the ones who will live with the long-term ef­fects of cli­mate change. That’s why it is so im­por­tant to be­gin now—to build good habits, raise aware­ness, and take con­sis­tent ac­tion. I’ve al­so seen the role the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can play by sup­port­ing these ef­forts and adopt­ing more sus­tain­able prac­tices. Every con­tri­bu­tion makes a dif­fer­ence. They say it takes a vil­lage to raise a child—but it al­so takes a vil­lage to pro­tect our fu­ture.

Cli­mate change may be the great­est chal­lenge of our time, but thanks to what we’re do­ing at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, I be­lieve we can meet not with fear, but with hope, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and uni­ty.

We’ve plant­ed the seeds of change. With the right sup­port, these seeds can take root in schools, homes, and com­mu­ni­ties every­where. That’s how we will build a bet­ter fu­ture—one step, one habit, one school at a time.

About the HAR­CON Na­tion­al Youth Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and ESG Pi­lot Project