‘We want people to say they love where they live’
THE Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) is in the midst of creating a social media campaign to raise awareness of the importance of the environment.
It started filming on Earth Day — last week Monday, April 22 — at its Earth House headquarters on Waterloo Road in the capital city and intends to release the first set of interviews in about a month.
The video will feature students and adults in short face-to-face segments and will be posted on popular video-sharing site YouTube.
“We’re asking people why the environment is important to them so that people can articulate it,” JET CEO Diana McCaulay told the Jamaica Observer.
“Why do you care about the enviroment? Is it because you grew up by the beach? Is it because you love trees? So we get people saying it in their own words,” she continued.
The reason for that line of questioning, she explained, is so that the concept of the environment, which is abstract for many, will come alive through people’s words and in their consciousness. This, she hopes, will lead to the adoption of ‘green’ practices on a wider scale.
“We hope it will go viral,” McCaulay said of the video. “We just want people to say they love where they live.”
The filming was part of JET’s observance of Earth Day, which was a celebration of its Schools’ Environment Prgramme. The day was also marked by a mini exhibition — by the National Environment and Planning Agency, Port Royal Marine Lab and Cockpit Country advocates Windsor Research Centre — documentary viewings, strorytelling and activities such as detecting bird species, making bird masks and a food chain relay.
Students from some 60 schools in the programme and their teachers attended. Among them were Avocat Primary and Junior High, Portland; West Indies College Prep, Manchester; Westwood High, Trelawny; St Jago Cathedral Prep, St Catherine; Maryland All-Age, Hanover; St Hugh’s Prep, Kingston; St Mary’s All-Age, St Mary; and Port Morant Primary and Junior High, St Thomas.
