BEBE ARCIFA KHAN-AJODHA

 

PROTECTING WHAT SHE BELIEVES IN

 

By Laura Ann Phillips

Features Desk

Express

Section 2

September 13, 2000

Page 1

 

Two years ago, Bebe Arcifa Khan-Ajodha was an information officer at the Environmental Management Authority.

 

On September 7, 2000, she was appointed to its board of directors.

 

The change is significant for her.

 

'I was an implementor of policy," Ajodha mused.

 

Now she helps direct it.

 

At this year's Independence Day national awards, Ajodha received the Hummingbird Medal, Silver for community service.

 

Communities are important, she believes.

 

Community groups often wield great influence over the people in their area, she said and so possess powerful possibilities for changing behaviour.

 

She works closely with community groups, giving voluntary lectures on conservation.

 

And intends to continue, she said.

 

As an EMA information officer in 1998, Ajodha gave lectures and produced several environmental education publications and programmes for children, young people and adults.

 

Today, she works full-time at the Rudranath Capildeo Learning Resource Centre in McBean, Couva, as their instructional materials manager, where she puts more than 14 years as an educator to use.

 

"I provide instructional materials - such as TV's and documentaries - to schools to improve the quality of education," she explained.

 

The daughter of a labourer and a homemaker, Ajodha grew up in California in central Trinidad.

 

In the Khan home, conservation was a natural part of life.

 

"California was an area without pipe-borne water, so we had to conserve water," said the mother of two.

 

"When you grow up with that thinking, it's hard to get out of it.  Even now, I tell my boys, 'Don't let the tap run'!"

 

Even with that early awareness, Ajodha said, she was never given to exploring the natural environment of her rural home.

 

That changed when she began pursuing her degree in Botany and Zoology at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

 

The programme required regular field trips to various parts of the country.

 

"I saw how beautiful this country really was," she said.

 

And seeing so much of T&T's natural environment convinced her that it was worth protecting.

 

"When you're educated, you're enlightened," she said.  Ajodha believes that the environment is an indispensable teaching tool, not only in environmental education, but can be useful in other areas of education.

 

It's important to instill the "right values" in children early, she said, for then, "they grow up with that ethic."

 

"As soon as I graduated, I worked on the San Fernando Hill," said Ajodha.  "A team of us [did research] on how to use the hill as a teaching tool for students; to see how to use the environment to teach children."

 

Many students, including her own son, have used the San Fernando Hill as the focus of their School-Based Assessments (SBA) - a practical, mandatory assignment which CXC students must complete before their final exam.

 

After her secondary education, Ajodha began teaching at ASJA Girls College and St Augustine Senior Comprehensive.

 

She then joined Williamsville Junior Secondary in 1981 as an assistant science teacher.  Three years later, she enrolled in the Corinth Teachers College in San Fernando.  There, she earned a national scholarship to UWI and pursued her degree in 1991.

 

She was next posted at Palmiste Government Primary School, them moved to the Learning Resource Centre as a science tutor for primary school teachers in 1992.

 

Later that year, she returned to Williamsville Junior Secondary, again as a science teacher.

 

Her second stint at Williamsville still lives in school memory.

 

A former student of the school, Jordan Awong and his sister drowned one year earlier in the swollen, heavily-polluted Guaracara River.

 

The following year, the fourth formers wanted to dedicate their project for the Royal Bank Young Leaders Competition to him.

 

Ajodha was co-ordinator of the project.  She had not known Awong, but saw how important it was to the students.

 

"We met with his parents," she recalled, "and they were happy with the project."

 

The Young Leaders cleaned the river - pulling out tin pans, chicken guts and feathers, car bumpers, clothes, radios.

 

Then, they piled it all on to a truck and paraded the sight through the village.

 

"The community was very supportive," Ajodha recalled.

 

"A gentleman was saying, 'When rain falling, is a good time to throw chicken feathers in the river'," Ajodha said.

 

People did not make the connection between the disposal of their waste and environmental problems later on.

 

"All of us are affected by that.  All of us breathe the same air."

 

Ajodha is a member of Global 500 - a prestigious group of environmentalists from around the world - and a life member of the National Science Teachers Association.

 

She will also be included in the British Journal, "The Environmental Encyclopaedia and Directory 2001", which may be likened to an international "Who's Who" listing of environmentalists around the world.

 

While a member of the EMA's board of directors, she intends to continue her individual work in environmental education - with urgency.

 

"We're such a small country.  We haven't reached the stage yet where our ground water supplies are polluted as in other large countries," said Ajodha, "but we can't afford that.

 

"We are a fragile island, a developing country," she said.  "We have to think about that."

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