Our Living, Breathing Caribbean Islands

The hundreds of people that work at Sandals and Beaches Resorts say, “The Caribbean is our sandbox.” It’s additionally our delicate backyard and our treasured slice of earth. This can be a each day mindset for Sandals Resorts Worldwide (SRI), the Sandals Basis and its companions, who commit each single day to creating certain all that we’ve been entrusted with is more healthy tomorrow than yesterday: the islands, the ocean, and the folks. Why? As a result of it’s all related. You may study extra about this dedication from the model’s Corporate Social Responsibility report. Within the meantime, and in celebration of Earth Day, we invite you to stroll by means of just some of the methods all of us are making optimistic variations for as we speak and into the longer term.

How We Feed an Wonderful Meals Cycle

It’s okay to ask the apparent query at Sandals and Seashores, like, what occurs to the leftovers? The Sandals Basis solutions that query by coaching resort workers, college students, and farmers on the wonders of sustainable composting. Up to now, greater than 20,000 tons of natural meals waste has been diverted from landfills to Caribbean farms, the place soil is now more healthy with much less reliance on costly fertilizers. Because of this, extra meals could be grown domestically, which reduces meals insecurity. At present greater than 1,700 farmers and SRI workforce members across the islands are expert at meals administration methods. The holistic provide chain returns to the place it began, too, as the vast majority of the meals served at Sandals and Seashores comes from these identical farmers, offering them with dependable earnings.

Supporting the Feminine Leaders of Island Agriculture

Among the many farmers main the best way to a more healthy Caribbean are the 75-plus girls of GRENROP (Grenada Network of Rural Women Producers). Girls have labored this land for generations, however with assist from the Sandals Basis, they’re now merging sustainable farming practices with sound enterprise practices. The muse has skilled them on composting, constructed shade homes, developed self-sustaining irrigation methods, offered seeds, and proven learn how to market the produce they develop. Sandals was additionally the primary resort to companion with GRENROP farmers to offer its eating places with the farm’s contemporary produce, and now Island Routes offers guests a farm-to-table experience at GRENROP farms.

Welcome to a Backyard For All

Rochelle Burke embodies the pure pleasure of the Caribbean. After a sequence of strokes left her bodily challenged, she has impressed folks of all talents in Barbados and past along with her ardour for gardening by means of her inclusive YouTube channel the place she exhibits how activies like gardening are for everybody. Lately, the Sandals Basis and Passiflora Restricted collaborated to unfold this identical appreciation for the earth by creating Rochelle’s Garden and Composting Area at Andromeda Botanic Gardens in Barbados. The expansive backyard supplies a gorgeous outside surroundings for differently-abled folks to take pleasure in, with wheelchair accessibility, security rails, and murals created by schoolchildren with various talents. It has develop into an idyllic spot for hands-on classes about sustainable gardening strategies which might be sources of pleasure for Rochelle.

Empowering Native Chicken Guides in Barbdaos

Birds inform us so much in regards to the character and well being of every Caribbean island. They pollinate, disperse seeds, and supply pure indicators in regards to the ecosystem with their flight paths and sheer numbers. If you realize what to search for, tropical birds are additionally fascinating to the eyes and ears. With this in thoughts, the Sandals Basis has funded a Caribbean Birding workshop for tour guides in Barbados, an necessary stopover island for tens of hundreds of birds. The data aquired over this 4 day course makes the guides simpler storytellers with company and extra influential stewards of the surroundings inside their very own communities. Experince it on your self and take a particular eco-tour and bird watching adventure with Island Routes.

Taking Faculty to the Sea

As a part of an ongoing program to broaden mangrove habitats throughout the Caribbean, workforce members from Sandals Montego Bay and Sandals Royal Caribbean lead schoolchildren from the close by Flanker neighborhood to the sting of the ocean to allow them to plant mangroves whereas planting their toes within the delicate, muddy shoreline. Subject journeys like this present youngsters how mangroves shield coastlines from erosion, present properties for wildlife, and make all life on the islands more healthy. The mangrove program is considered one of many supposed to unfold environmental consciousness amongst younger individuals who will go wholesome habits on to future generations.

The Transformative Powers of Sunshine

The identical ever-present solar that makes the islands so stunning can also be getting used to enhance training in probably the most rural Caribbean communities. It’s a part of the “Power of 15” initiative, the Sandals Basis’s fifteenth Anniversary mission, the place the group helps set up photo voltaic panels in under-resourced faculties so college students can use laptop know-how with out energy interruptions.

“Offering a dependable and cost-efficient vitality supply will restrict carbon footprints whereas additionally closing the necessary digital divide in training,” says Heidi Clarke, Govt Director of the Sandals Basis, including, “These faculties additionally act as security locations for the communities throughout pure disasters, which makes these enhancements much more important.”