Co­or­di­na­tor of the Cari-Bois Youth Jour­nal­ism Project, Tyrell Git­tens, says ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents from schools in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties was the project’s chief goal. De­liv­er­ing clos­ing re­marks at the ini­tia­tive’s third cy­cle where 20 stu­dents from schools across T&T were award­ed cer­tifi­cates, Git­tens said the three-year pro­gramme aimed to build re­search and writ­ing skills while rais­ing cli­mate aware­ness.

Git­tens, who co­or­di­nates The Crop­per Foun­da­tion’s Cari-Bois En­vi­ron­men­tal News Net­work, said every el­e­ment of the Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber 2024 and Jan­u­ary to April 2025 cy­cles fol­lowed the ex­am­ple set in 2023. Schools were cho­sen from rur­al dis­tricts to broad­en ac­cess be­yond so-called pres­tige in­sti­tu­tions and to reach com­mu­ni­ties most ex­posed to cli­mate threats.

“Form Four pupils were se­lect­ed be­cause they are not yet im­mersed in ex­am­i­na­tion prepa­ra­tion but are se­nior enough to share lessons with peers,” Git­tens said.