Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

A group of young en­vi­ron­men­tal ad­vo­cates dressed as su­per­heroes are tak­ing their mes­sage of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in­to schools across Trinidad, en­cour­ag­ing chil­dren to re­duce their de­pen­dence on sin­gle-use plas­tics and be­come cham­pi­ons for the en­vi­ron­ment.

The Eco-He­roes made their fi­nal school vis­it for the aca­d­e­m­ic term yes­ter­day at the Cunu­pia Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, where they used in­ter­ac­tive pre­sen­ta­tions, cos­tumes and sto­ry­telling to in­spire stu­dents to play an ac­tive role in pro­tect­ing the plan­et.

The ini­tia­tive, launched by the 4-H Club of Tu­na­puna Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School, fea­tures four stu­dent am­bas­sadors: An­toinette Kissoon as Eco Girl, An­drew Ra­masar as Eco Boy, An­drew Rey­ers as Eco Avenger and Matthew Cipri­ani as Earth Boy.

Speak­ing dur­ing the vis­it, spokesper­son and 4-H leader An­toinette Browne-Kissoon (moth­er of Eco Girl), said the project aims to ed­u­cate chil­dren through their peers while high­light­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal dam­age caused by dis­pos­able plas­tics.

“To­day’s event is ed­u­cat­ing youths, us­ing youths to ed­u­cate youths about re­duc­ing the use of sin­gle-use plas­tics,” she said. “Es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Plas­tic-Free Month, we’re en­cour­ag­ing chil­dren to re­duce sin­gle-use plas­tic waste.”

Browne-Kissoon ex­plained that the idea for the Eco-He­roes was born af­ter her daugh­ter ob­served the large amount of plas­tic waste gen­er­at­ed from dis­pos­able cut­lery used with school lunch­es.

“We de­cid­ed to see how we could re­duce that waste,” she said.

That sim­ple idea evolved in­to an en­vi­ron­men­tal project which was en­tered in­to a re­gion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal com­pe­ti­tion, where the team se­cured first place.

En­cour­aged by their suc­cess, the stu­dents ex­pand­ed the ini­tia­tive be­yond their school, trans­form­ing it in­to a na­tion­wide aware­ness cam­paign.

Since then, the Eco-He­roes have vis­it­ed sev­er­al pri­ma­ry schools and or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, Ex­change RC School and cor­po­rate part­ners, spread­ing prac­ti­cal mes­sages about re­duc­ing plas­tic waste and adopt­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly habits.

The group has al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture sum­mer camps, uni­ver­si­ty out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ty events, us­ing fun and en­gag­ing meth­ods to en­cour­age chil­dren to be­come en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ards.

While the re­sponse has been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive, Browne-Kissoon said the pro­gramme’s fu­ture ex­pan­sion de­pends on se­cur­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port.

“We would like to vis­it more schools, but we need fund­ing to make that hap­pen,” she said. “We’re hop­ing the Eco-He­roes can be­come an an­nu­al ini­tia­tive around World En­vi­ron­ment Day and In­ter­na­tion­al Plas­tic-Free Month so that every year we can en­cour­age more peo­ple to re­duce sin­gle-use plas­tic waste.”

She be­lieves em­pow­er­ing chil­dren is one of the most ef­fec­tive ways to cre­ate last­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal change, not­ing that young peo­ple of­ten take what they learn home and in­flu­ence the habits of their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

As the school term comes to a close, the Eco-He­roes hope their mes­sage will con­tin­ue to res­onate long af­ter the cos­tumes are put away—that pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment be­gins with sim­ple every­day choic­es, and every child has the pow­er to be­come a hero for the plan­et.