St Vincent and the Grenadines received international praise for its participation in the recently concluded Treelympics competition, which saw millions of trees planted around the world over a one-month period.

This country earned a gold medal from the Finland based Environment Online (ENO) {{more}}in the Olympic Games in tree planting competition, which saw over 3,000 schools from 100 countries participating, and 17 million trees planted to date.

St Vincent and the Grenadines won gold in the category of Most Active Country, with 99 per cent participation of the schools registered.

Turkey gained the gold for planting in the most schools, 600 in total, while Belarus won gold for planting 138,000 trees.

Selwyn Patterson, facilitator at the Richmond Vale Academy, told SEARCHLIGHT that the effort was a great achievement accomplished, thanks to the partnership between his institution and the Ministry of Education, Scotiabank, and the Ministry of Health, Wellness, and the Environment.

“To see that we received a gold medal… this is a major achievement. I feel good that St Vincent and the Grenadines could achieve something like this. It was a lot of hard work.

“I would like to thank all the schools, because without them it would not be a success, because to mobilize all the schools is hard work. The ‘one-month teams’ really did a good job to mobilize the schools.”

Patterson said that the Academy intends to continue doing its part to help St Vincent and the Grenadines environmentally, and despite the challenges faced, will continue to focus on the goals they intend to achieve.

Meanwhile, members of the most recent ‘One Month Team,’ persons who attend the Academy for a one-month period, accompanied Patterson and facilitator Laetitia Fernandez to SEARCHLIGHT, where they gave their approval of the Academy.

Vincentians Keyon Morgan and Carola John, along with Thomas Hanson of Denmark and Domina Pavlov of Croatia, said that they enjoyed their experience at the Academy, and were thankful for the opportunity to interact with persons from different countries and cultures, and to learn about the environment, climate change and organic farming.(JJ)