By Precious Peter
Returning to Create Caribbean has been a pleasure despite the catastrophe, great losses and agonizing pain following Hurricane Maria. It has been sort of an escape from all the chaos and changes happening presently. Create Caribbean itself has been going through a few changes but nothing that we cannot work through.
Although we were not fully operational due to the passage of hurricane Maria, Create Caribbean has been quite busy acquiring information and using limited resources for our most current project ‘Carisealand’. What is Carisealand? To be brief, this project is a BETA emanating from the Caribbean region which is intended for collaborative knowledge-sharing, with the aim of sustainable development. It provides not only students, but the general public including persons in prominent positions such as governments, with a digital platform to access well researched information fixated on the environment and preservation.
Under Carisealand, the topic which I was assigned to work on is “environmental laws and Justice”. My partner Rhea Xavier and I are already in the process of gathering data, which relates to how environmental laws in the region may be contradicting/conflicting, or how the malpractices of individuals pose threats to the preservation of the environment.
To dig deeper into the topic on environmental law, the comparison ‘legislature vs policy’ will arise. This proffers questions like… “what is the difference between the two? why does one often tend to contradict the other? who should enforce environmental laws? What are the consequences for breaking or disregarding an environmental law? Are the consequences for disregarding a policy as grave as disregarding a law? How can we increase the awareness of the importance of environmental laws and issues?”.
So many questions to be answered and so much information to be processed. In addition, it is important to look at the wrongful practices of individuals that are harmful to the environment as it may affect us as humans.
In hindsight, every member of the Create family faced manifold challenges including having limited to no internet access as a result of no electricity and the cost of data became expensive with little efficiency. Also, traveling from afar to be present at Create meetings was definitely a challenge for a few of us. There were certain parts of the country where roads were impassable and everyone was forced to walk to wherever their destination was. Of course, our greatest challenge was finding a suitable and centralized location for work, as our previous workspace was totally destroyed.
Thankfully, we Create members have came a long way from having brief meetings due to an effective curfew, to having more relaxed, lengthier and productive meetings. I personally hope that our goals for the year 2018 will be achieved irrespective of what greater challenges come our way. With the support of each other, the right resources and endless perseverance, Create Caribbean AND Carisealand will indeed be successful.