This week's guest colum­nist is PAT GANASE, com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant and sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er of At­lantic LNG, and blog­ger http://wild­girl­wild­world.blogspot.com who tells us how a liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) pro­duc­ing com­pa­ny in Point Fortin is en­cour­ag­ing some 1,000 chil­dren to pro­vide a hands-on ap­proach to agri­cul­ture.

A project that be­gan in 2007 fos­ters ap­pre­ci­a­tion of trees, forests and get­ting your own food out of the ground. It in­volves some 1,000 chil­dren and young peo­ple in schools and com­mu­ni­ty clubs.

They may not all be­come farm­ers or agri-en­tre­pre­neurs, but they would have de­vel­oped some im­por­tant core val­ues. These young­sters are the At­lantic Seeds of Hope.

-Pat Ganase, sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er, At­lantic LNG

This week's guest colum­nist is PAT GANASE, com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant and sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er of At­lantic LNG, and blog­ger http://wild­girl­wild­world.blogspot.com who tells us how a liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) pro­duc­ing com­pa­ny in Point Fortin is en­cour­ag­ing some 1,000 chil­dren to pro­vide a hands-on ap­proach to agri­cul­ture. Do you know where your food comes from? Ask the av­er­age sev­en-year-old, and you might be amazed by the an­swers. Sev­en-year-olds in the south­west penin­su­la of Trinidad have a clear idea of the re­la­tion­ships of soil, seed, wa­ter and what they eat; and the im­por­tance of trees to clean air and healthy en­vi­ron­ments. A project that be­gan in 2007 fos­ters ap­pre­ci­a­tion of trees, forests and get­ting your own food out of the ground. It in­volves some 1,000 chil­dren and young peo­ple in schools and com­mu­ni­ty clubs.

They may not all be­come farm­ers or agri-en­tre­pre­neurs, but they would have de­vel­oped some im­por­tant core val­ues. These young­sters are the At­lantic Seeds of Hope. The south­west penin­su­la-the coun­ty of St Patrick West-prob­a­bly has the most vi­brant group of 4-H Clubs in the coun­try. 4-H is a pro­gramme that start­ed a cen­tu­ry ago in mid­dle Amer­i­ca to pro­vide a hands-on ap­proach to agri­cul­ture to young chil­dren. It has evolved in­to the largest youth or­gan­i­sa­tion in the USA (http://www.4-h.org/about/youth-de­vel­op­ment-or­gan­i­sa­tion/) with 4-H'ers gen­er­al­ly more fo­cused stu­dents and ex­celling in their cho­sen fields. It came to Trinidad about 50 years ago. The 4-H'ers in 30 clubs in Point Fortin and its en­vi­rons are no ex­cep­tion. Their ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties are led by ded­i­cat­ed teach­ers who com­prise the Vol­un­tary Lead­ers Coun­cil.

This ef­fort is co-or­di­nat­ed by an of­fi­cer in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, and in the case of Point Fortin fa­cil­i­tat­ed by a prac­ti­cal and vi­sion­ary ad­min­is­tra­tor. In 2007, At­lantic formed a part­ner­ship with the 4-H Vol­un­tary Lead­ers Coun­cil in Point Fortin that in­vit­ed the clubs to col­lect seeds, in­clud­ing those that might be ger­mi­nat­ed to plant in a buffer zone be­tween the LNG plant and the town. The pro­gramme for that year in­clud­ed class­room talks on per­ma­cul­ture, seed-search­ing hikes fa­cil­i­tat­ed by foresters and the com­pi­la­tion of scrap­books and jour­nals about the species that were col­lect­ed. Some clubs start­ed ger­mi­nat­ing seeds al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. The seeds of many trop­i­cal trees ger­mi­nate ear­ly in the rainy sea­son so they have a good pe­ri­od to grow be­fore the next dry sea­son.

Many seeds were ger­mi­nat­ed in the fol­low­ing year when the pro­gramme al­so pro­vid­ed for the sale of seedlings through a ded­i­cat­ed nurs­ery at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture on Reid Road, Point Fortin. You can find flow­er­ing trees like flam­boy­ant, im­mortelle, poui, bael; fruit trees such as cashima, pois doux, caimite, sapodil­la, chen­net, gua­va, pom­mer­ac, pom­me­cythere, limes, sour­sop; or­na­men­tals and herbs. If you are look­ing for a par­tic­u­lar tree, you can ask for it: chances are one of the clubs will go and look for seeds. The pro­gramme has evolved based on the re­sources of teach­ers, the col­lec­tive knowl­edge base of the Vol­un­tary Lead­ers Coun­cil, and At­lantic's spon­sor­ship. Some 4-H Clubs in St Patrick East and Vic­to­ria coun­ties as well as in To­ba­go have re­cent­ly joined the pro­gramme.

It still in­cludes seed col­lec­tion and ger­mi­na­tion, train­ing ses­sions (bud­ding and graft­ing, wa­ter con­ser­va­tion), plant­i­ng home gar­dens, shar­ing veg­etable seedlings on World Food Day and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties that al­low the chil­dren to go out­side, get wet in the rain and play with soil. Com­mu­ni­ty clubs have joined the move­ment, no doubt en­cour­aged by Jen­ny Ram­jat­tan, the tire­less co-or­di­na­tor. Mon­i­ca Lessey, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture's ad­min­is­tra­tor in Point Fortin who has tak­en the lead in Seeds of Hope, has de­vel­oped spe­cif­ic in­di­ca­tors to mea­sure whether the pro­gramme is suc­ceed­ing. She ex­pects in each year, to have at least 500 youths grow­ing 20,000 plants (trees as well as food plants), with knowl­edge of the val­ue of trees and able to iden­ti­fy some rare plants.

The achieve­ments of the chil­dren are recog­nised in an awards cer­e­mo­ny which takes place at the end of each year. Re­wards which go to the clubs are put back in­to re­sources for suc­ceed­ing years. If you want to know more about Seeds of Hope, go to the Web site: http://www.4hseed­sofhope.org. If you wish to con­tribute to this guest se­ries, send in your ideas to Ira Math­ur at iras­room@gmail.com or cleaningupthemess@guardian.co.tt and join our face­book page on http://www.face­book.com.