Richmond Vale Academy - Newsletter August 2015

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Richmond Vale Academy Dream. Decide. Develop. Do.

Visit our new Website!!

talkgreen.org Another Kind of School

Jocelyn and Zdenka, part of the Fighting with the Poor team that started in April, are slowly getting ready to travel to their project country. In October they will start their 6months Service Period in Ecuador, where they will work in Child Aid Loja shoulder to shoulder, with the poor communities enrolled in the Humana Pueblo a Pueblo project.

Richmond Vale Academy IS another kind of school, an international environment, with teachers and participants from many different countries and with a multitude of different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, skills, languages and education. Sharing life and work in this setting with its challenges, necessities and big issues being discussed and studied constitutes an excellent training Another Fighting with the Poor team is in and of itself. finishing its’ 18-months program, finalizing their Journal products and getting ready to Working together and building comradeship take all the last exams. Alessia and Anna are and long lasting friendships are necessary almost coming to their last studies in order to and key elements in the kind of school we get the A-Certificate, before embarking on are. We come together and learn how to work their new experience and their continued in groups and teams. Humans are social work together with the poor. beings and even though modern society is teaching us otherwise, we are not fulfilled by Climate Compliance Team #10 started off in individualism and materialism.

July and after a month full of studies about the changing climate, the history of St. By running the school together we not only Vincent and a sustainable future, the team take care of our community in the best way, has moved into its second month under the we also gain lots of experiences, skills and headline “RVA Climate Compliant”. During knowledge by carrying out new tasks and this period in their program, the students and new responsibilities. teachers carry out different projects to make As usual a multitude of activities is RVA a more sustainable and climate happening at all times. Currently 3 core compliant school and community. The team teams are living, studying and working at the has split into 3 smaller groups; school.

Newsletter August 2015

organic produce. While we are already cleaning with vinegar and baking soda, now Nadhia and Lina are trying to make a system so we can produce our own soaps and detergent - one step closer to 100% organic.

Tosh and Sixia are dedicating the month of August to develop the existing Fruit Garden into a food forest through learning and implementing different Permaculture techniques and models. We will soon see a lot of new crops growing in the garden.

Kelly, Laura and Maira decided to develop a grey water system that will make it possible for us to recycle our grey water from showers, sinks and washing machine. A big operation but the plans are made and the implementation is starting now. We are all very excited and looking forward to seeing the end result!! Recycling water will add to the improvement of the Richmond Vale Climate Center.

A lot more ideas are on the table, and they hopefully will be carried out very soon. To achieve all of our high goals both at the academy and as in the communities of St. Vincent, we will need more people, a whole lot more!! We need your help!! Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information and get to One of the groups decided to change all the know how you can get involved as well!! cleaning and washing materials at RVA into "1

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The St. Vincent Climate Compliance Conference 2012-2021

Setting 1,000 seedlings in record time!!

Here in RVA we like to promote the amazing properties of Moringa Oleifera.

We set the seedlings, plant the trees for the environment, and for their health benefits. We have one in our herb garden and we make tea from the leaves for breakfast. We dry and grind the leaves to make powder that we sprinkle on our food, add to salads, eggs, etc. We are constantly researching new ways to cook with Moringa leaves, pods and seeds.

Lastly, we are starting to feed it to our animals – the horses are now used to the taste and their coats have visibly improved over the past few months!

Making organic soaps The making of "ORGANIC SOAP" is a project that seeks to contribute to the improvement of life in communities, especially those with low-income population, by making the purchase of cleaning supplies less expensive.

Thanks to this, the community can manufacture its own products quickly and with reduced costs. Besides that, it promotes environmental education with the main advantage of reducing environmental pollution and saving raw materials, contributing to sustainable development.

One of the raw materials used to manufacture the organic soap is used " 2

Gram for gram, Moringa has: -9 times the proteins of yogurt, -10 times more vitamin A than carrots, -6 times as much vitamin C as oranges, -3 times as much potassium as bananas.

and count them. Thanks to teamwork we managed to set all seedlings in just 1 hour and 15 minutes – this is RVA record!

You can read more about our Moringarelated actions on our blog.

And as little as half a cup of cooked leaves will meet your daily recommendation for Vitamins A and C. Finally, we plant Moringa as part of the Treelympics! Last Friday the whole academy came together to set 1,000 seedlings for the olympic games in treeplanting. Everyone had a job: some were filling nursery bags with soil, others gave them water, putting in the seeds; some would ensure we have enough soil while others would move the seedlings

(cooked) vegetable oil or animal fat. This kind of soap prevents the used oil to be contaminated from getting inside water and soil after discarding the residual oil as kitchen waste. So, to solve this problem, it is very beneficial to reuse the residual oil that was used in cooking.

The soap can be used to wash dishes, clothes, bathrooms and floors.

The project encourages awareness of community to keep the oil, combat waste, avoid clogging pipes and environmental pollution.

The homemade soap production allows people to use only organic, known components, and avoid unwanted elements such as chemicals and perfumes.

In Richmond Vale Academy this project will be developed by the students of the Climate Compliance Team and it will contribute to the environment and the long-term goal of reaching selfsustainability by RVA. Recycling oil means generating less waste and thereby contributing to a healthier environment, not only ensuring the preservation of our species, but also all forms of life on this wonderful blue planet, EARTH. Nadhia and Lina Climate Compliance Team #10

Newsletter August 2015

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Sustainable Life, Education and Garden Farming

Self sustainability, togetherness, healthy living and global warming are causes and main reasons to practice garden farming in our school. This is a new concept for many; at Richmond Vale Academy, a daily action.

and seed and grow organic food, vegetables and fruits, during the service period in Ecuador, Belize and at the school in Saint Vincent.

In RVA (Richmond Vale Academy) we, teachers and students, search for friendly environmental alternatives on which we base our learning process and our fight against poverty and global warming. We stand for development and responsibility and we have decided to implement the organic farming education understanding that if we want to build a sense of community connected to health and sustainability, garden farming is the center piece of the puzzle.

We understand that traditional monoculture, agribusiness politics and modern agriculture techniques are damaging and leading the Earth´s fertile soil to desertification, the huge and uncontrolled amount of chemical fertilizers used during the process, on the way to control plagues and to guarantee high percentage of food at harvesting. It is required to change our vision and ways of producing food and link it with environmental friendly techniques and systems. We start this process in our organic farm at our school.

With an exponential growth of population taking place in our World and lack of resources in poor communities, food production skills are required. Hunger and dependency incubate inequality and create strong and deep poverty traps. Our climate activists, humanitarians and volunteers at RVA understand the need of being able to implement changes, teach,

It's clear for us that garden farming must be one of the main aspects in our programs. That´s why we have placed and organized schedules, students and teachers, tools and consciousness around our vegetable beds and fruit trees, and we come together, cultivate, sew, water, take care and harvest much more than food, but knowledge and togetherness.

Newsletter August 2015

And Why Permaculture?

This is not only a way to understand food production, but much more – it is a holistic understanding of our impact in the world and the role of our society. We have to feed ourselves and we see hungry people, and then we learn and teach about farming; but we go further: we want to feed ourselves with healthy food and let the next generation feed themselves too, and that is when we learn about organic farming.

We need to take a stand to sustainability.

Every day it becomes more clear that we have been wrong, that we have damaged our Earth, and that we have to stop and change, to do better. The next generations will be influenced by the impact of our actions. We have the responsibility to improve and find alternatives to keep Fighting with the Poor and stop Global Warming.

Miguel Angel Rosado One World Center

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Poverty and Education in Toledo District, Belize

Belize spends not a small amount of money (6.6% of its GDP, same rate as, for example, Belgium), to improve the education, but still the results are weak.

More and more children are outside of schools or forced to work. Even those who go to school sometimes drop out as a result of low attendance to class and so impossibility to follow the program. Not to mention the economical issues related to the school fees, because the basic education (primary & secondary) is not completely free.

After the six months I spent in Blue Creek village in Toledo District (Belize), in direct contact with children, parents, teachers and villagers, it was clear that there was an obvious link between the lack of education and the poverty they were submitted to.

The problem of child labor is still not solved. Statistics reveal that 40% of the children between 5 and 14

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years old are working, instead of going to school.

One of the answers I heard during the different investigations in the community was that people on purpose make big families with many kids in order to get helped in the future, as a workforce. Then, because some parents have the feeling that sending kids to school is only a waste of time, they see no job opportunities for their kids even though education is essential to generate development.

Another basic reason is that, as the children, the parents did it too in the past, and for them it is normal that the children work.

The lack of attendance is one of the main causes of dropping out of school. As soon as the children turn 14 years old, school is no more mandatory so their parents don't feel the need to continue to “spend” money on their children for their “brighter future”. Another important fact is that children in rural areas have particularly limited access to secondary education. In 2009, five in ten students living in urban areas were enrolled in secondary schools, while only three in ten residing in rural areas were attending school.

The inequalities observed in the education

outcomes in terms of lower attendance rates, completion rates and performance in rural areas are due, in part, to inequities and inefficiencies in the sector.

The cost of education is one of the main reasons linking poverty to the lack of education. As I mentioned before, primary and secondary schools are not completely free. There are important costs related to the fact the children must go to school (around US$ 10/ year for primary and US$ 100/ year for secondary).

It is true that those kids are not employed at a 100%, they still attend school, which is why it is really hard to monitor such activity. They are “offered” seasonal jobs or they work for the household but still are not going to class regularly enough to graduate.

Newsletter June 2014

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For example, the transport to go to school: expenses to travel to the institution, many kids go by foot. In addition annual fees are to pay to the schools in agreement with the Ministry of Education.

Then different school fees such as the books, the materials to write on, the uniforms (obligatory) and the food. Some studies show that Toledo is one of the districts with the lowest level of household education expenditures: spending 7.5 % of their total spending to education (compared to 16,2% for Cayo district in the north). This is one of the main reasons why children stop before the end of the secondary school.

So you will understand the disaster they are facing when it comes to speak about expenses for the tertiary

Newsletter June 2015

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school. In average, by year, the amount of expenditure can reach BZ$ 4,600 (US$ 2,300) for a student between 18 and 23 years old.

Something that really impressed me is the fact that most of the girls attending secondary school had better grades than boys, but were not really looking forward to leave the village to get a job in town as many boys did, but not only, did. While the boys are “out” trying to integrate into the work market, girls stay at home, taking care of the family and the household, waiting to get a husband to perpetrate the same life as their mother. So I wonder, where is the change?

Where is the emancipation due to the higher education?

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So what is still to improve?

A bigger effort is to invest in the education system. In the countries surrounding Belize many programs are developed to improve the disadvantaged people's conditions of life, most of all concerning the school education. For example the “Bolsa Familia” program in Brazil, which gives a monthly aid, under certain conditions related to the children school attendance. They provide help even in health care for the children. This program has demonstrated good results on short and long term to fight poverty and improve people’s lives.

In my opinion we must look in other directions too, if we want to improve the quality of the people's lives. Poverty is not only an economical

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condition but also a state of mind. Programs at 360° are needed to provide them with skills in life, such as growing their own food and not being 100% dependent on the market; nutrition classes and health sessions to teach how to prevent simple diseases which can be deadly otherwise; provide knowledge about how to run small business for example; how to organize themselves into associations or cooperatives and get help from the government...

Many things are still to improve if we want to fight poverty and its consequences… What are we waiting for?

Alessia Calato Fighting With the Poor Team#5

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Beach Clean Up in Petit Bordel

Petit Bordel is a nearby village with a small beach, where we like to dive because of its amazing underwater world. However, it’s very sad to see the beach in a really bad state – full of glass and plastic bottles, rusted metal and any other kind of trash you can imagine. That’s why we’d decided to go there and clean things up a little bit.

After a small mobilizing action we went there on Saturday, many young and older helpers were already waiting for us. Together with the members of the community we have picked 30 bags of trash in just 2 hours. And, as usual, had lots of fun doing it!

Why don’t you organize a cleaning action for your favorite area?

Special Thank You to the Central Water and Sewerage Authority in Kingstown for providing cleaning materials to the cleaners.

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Newsletter August 2015

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Another Kind of School

Newsletter August 2015

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We Take Action and you can get involved now!

Over 500 international activists from countries all over the world have chosen to participate in our programs and have helped us build Richmond Vale Academy into the place that it is today. With the Climate Compliance Conference and Fighting with the Poor we have big visions and dreams and for that we are welcoming hundreds more activists to fight global poverty and make the island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines into a climate compliant country.

Find out on our website how to join one of our next Teams starting up in the fall of 2015 or the spring of 2016: - Fighting with the Poor Teams (18 months): October 2015 and April 2016 - Climate Compliance Teams (6 months): November 2015, March and July 2016 - Climate Compliance Teams (1 month): Every March, July and November Don’t hesitate and join hands with us in this big quest!!

Richmond Vale Academy

Richmond Vale Academy Chateaubelair St. Vincent and the Grenadines www.richmondvale.org www.talkgreen.org www.facebook.com/RichmondValeAcademy +1784 458 2255 info@richmondvale.org

August 2015