So­cial­ly dis­placed res­i­dents in San Fer­nan­do are now re­ceiv­ing train­ing in hy­dro­pon­ics and aquapon­ics through a new food pro­duc­tion sys­tem in­stalled at the Court Sham­rock Home for So­cial­ly Dis­placed peo­ple.

The project, val­ued at $150,000, was fund­ed by Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion through their EPIC (Ex­tra­or­di­nary Projects Im­pact­ing Com­mu­ni­ties) ini­tia­tive.

The sys­tem, which com­bines drip-to-waste and nat­ur­al farm­ing meth­ods, will sup­ply fresh pro­duce to Court Sham­rock while serv­ing as both a train­ing ground and ther­a­peu­tic tool for the res­i­dents.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, So­cial Per­for­mance and So­cial In­vest­ment Ad­vi­sor for Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go, Rys­sa Brath­waite, said Shell has been part­ner­ing with com­mu­ni­ty-based projects over the last three years to sup­port so­cial im­pact work. She ex­plained that agri­cul­ture was pri­ori­tised due to its po­ten­tial to ad­dress food se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for em­pow­er­ment.

“This isn’t just about farm­ing,” Brath­waite said. “It’s about en­gag­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ries in a way that im­proves their well-be­ing and helps them ac­cess nu­tri­tious food sus­tain­ably.”

Court Sham­rock cur­rent­ly hous­es around 75 so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons across two fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing a night shel­ter and a more per­ma­nent res­i­den­tial cen­tre. Chair­man Ran­dall Mo­hammed said while space is lim­it­ed, the new ini­tia­tive of­fers val­ue be­yond ca­pac­i­ty.

“The sys­tem will not on­ly sup­ply us with food but al­low us to sell pro­duce and gen­er­ate rev­enue to help meet op­er­at­ing costs,” Mo­hammed said. “It al­so al­lows res­i­dents to gain new skills and un­der­stand how the sys­tem works, since train­ing is part of the project.”

Mo­hammed said once the cur­rent sys­tem is ful­ly op­er­a­tional, it will be en­tire­ly main­tained by Court Sham­rock staff and res­i­dents.

“We feel very priv­i­leged to have been se­lect­ed,” he said. “It’s a chance to pro­vide some­thing mean­ing­ful for the peo­ple we serve.”

Mean­while, Cindyann Cur­ren­cy, Head of Op­er­a­tions at the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, said the EPIC ini­tia­tive be­gan in 2016 and ini­tial­ly of­fered grants of US$5,000 (TT$35,000).

Cur­ren­cy said Court Sham­rock was se­lect­ed from over 100 ap­pli­cants.

“When you think about peo­ple who are dis­placed, some­thing like gar­den­ing could on­ly ben­e­fit them—spir­i­tu­al­ly, even,” she added.

Alex Jones, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Ari­a­phon­ics Lim­it­ed, who built the green­house, hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem and aquapon­ic sys­tem, said he was grate­ful to part­ner with the com­pa­nies to im­prove the way of life for the so­cial­ly dis­placed.

“We will pro­vide them the train­ing, the guid­ance on plant nu­tri­tion,

on the pest and dis­ease man­age­ment, and even if they re­quire any sort of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment in­for­ma­tion on agri­cul­ture, we will pro­vide that in­for­ma­tion as well,” he said. Jones said tech­no­log­i­cal agri­cul­ture should be fac­tored in­to so­cial pro­grammes as it was not on­ly ther­a­peu­tic but al­so fi­nan­cial­ly lu­cra­tive.