Basseterre, St. Kitts (MoPIEUDT NEWS) – As the smallest country in the Western hemisphere, St. Kitts and Nevis faces gargantuan challenges in its quest for sustainable development. Not least among the barriers the government must overcome to exploit its resources mindfully while futureproofing its infrastructure is the attitudinal change it requires of its citizens to maximize the impact of its efforts to promote the responsible use of its resources.
The Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Energy, Utilities, and Domestic Transport remains resolute in its quest to overcome all challenges that impede the transition towards sustainability. For lasting change to occur, however, its leadership acknowledges that it must develop activities and programs for youth to facilitate the exchange of ideas about issues concerning the Ministry’s portfolio.
One of the most notable displays of youth involvement in the Ministry’s operations was its inaugural internship program in December 2023. The program’s organizing team deployed fourteen high school and college students to various departments and assigned them supervised tasks over two weeks.
“I learned patience. I learned to observe different people to see what exactly I should talk to them about and how to help them. It was a very good internship.”
– Joshua Petty
The Ministry’s leadership is discussing the feasibility of hosting another internship in the summer of 2025. It is the first sign of plans to regularize the program.
Although it generally normalizes youth’s integration into professional life, the program also exploits their interests and curiosity in the world. It streamlines their thinking through problems from a ministerial perspective, which can also influence their relationships with the resources that the Ministry manages with sustainability in mind.
The Ministry’s departments have also adopted unique approaches to exposing youth to their operations. The Energy Unit’s Career Day and its mascot design competition are among the examples.
Unlike the internship program, however, the initiatives of the Energy Unit have a shorter duration and are directly tied to energy-related matters. Even so, they are among the most interactive events to capitalize on the participants’ collective curiosity and creativity.
Each year, the Energy Unit facilitates an interactive Career Day session between energy professionals and students in secondary and tertiary schools to discuss career options in the energy sector. This year, the Energy Unit will host its Career Day session over three days in two locations. It will also feature diverse professionals.
The next iteration of sessions is on March 18 – 20, 2025. Read more below.
In addition to its Career Day sessions, the Energy Unit elevated its interaction with youth during its celebration of CARICOM Energy Month in November 2024, when it launched a mascot design competition for youth between the ages of 7 and 19. A panel of judges and the general public assessed the participants’ design skills and story-telling prowess to determine the design they believed best represented the Unit.
The activity demonstrated the participants’ abilities to contribute meaningfully to the initiatives of the Unit and the Ministry in general with creativity.
The Water Services Department (WSD) is also capitalizing on youth to spread its message of water conservation. On March 20, the WSD will host a quiz for primary schoolers to showcase their knowledge of water-related matters. The quiz is among several activities commemorating World Water Day on March 22, 2025. WSD Executive Officer Nikisha Jeffers hopes the quiz will inspire the participants to share their knowledge to effect change in their communities.
“We want to foster a sense of responsibility by making them aware of how their actions can impact the environment and the role they can play in bringing about change.“
– Nikisha Jeffers, WSD Executive Officer
As the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Energy, Utilities, and Domestic Transport looks to the future, it continues to benefit from the relationships it forges with youth through its deliberate efforts to engage them. By involving youth in its activities, the Ministry is actively preparing future leaders to face the issues inherent to the prevailing vision of sustainability and improve on those visions.
