Climate change mitigation is an exigency that must be urgently acted upon if the rate of global warming and its resulting negative effects are to be slowed down.  The threat of climate change on whole livelihoods across the globe can never be overstated, as it is real, being a point of reflection as we enter 2021- calling all of us to action. ...

“What if you were a teacher but had no voice to speak your knowledge? What if you had no language at all and yet there was something you needed to say? Wouldn’t you dance it? Wouldn’t you act it out? Wouldn’t your every movement tell the story?” While you are reading this text, think about how we could all live a Symbiotic life – a life for all to ...

I was looking for an internship for my school, and opportunities to study abroad. With Richmond Vale's program I got both at once, as well as a chance to explore my interest in sustainable communities I work as an environmental educator, teaching subjects like ecology, wildlife identification, and sustainability. I learned a lot in practice from my...

What did you do before coming here? 7 graduated from high school and worked to save up 1 finished a BA degree 1 a journalist and social worker 3 worked as an economist, cook and waitress. 1 returned from travelling 1 teaching English as a foreign language What made you take the decision to join? That it is about environment and living sustainable T...

1. We Are All Born Free & Equal. We are all born free. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way. 2. Don’t Discriminate. These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences. 3. The Right to Life. We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety. 4. No Slavery. Nobody has any right to...

“A little bit of Monica in my life... A little bit of Erica by my side... A little bit of Rita’s all I need...” The song Mambo No. 5 blasted through the blue minibus that took me all the way from the south of St Vincent to Chateaubelair in the far north-east where I’d booked a sustainability tour of Richmond Vale Academy, a non-profit research and ...

Black man be proud! It’s not the colour of your skin That makes you great. It’s not the size of your head Nor your body weight. Black man be proud! There is no difference between Africa, England, Australia or Canada, No difference between Negro blood And Caucasian stud. Black man be proud! They captured you and did enslave, But you were courageous,...

Ethics, by definition, are a set of principles that govern decision making and define the morals of a single individual. They influence how a person differs between right and wrong, their rights and responsibilities and how they live their lives. The code of ethics is a long list of principles that cover a wide range of aspects of everyday life and...

Apparently if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. Or maybe it is like this that if you love what you do enough, you’ll work every single moment of your life at it. I have been lucky enough to have known what I wanted in my life and its work to be and even luckier enough to have had the opportunity to pursue it. To have had...

Over the last couple of decades the fires in the Western US have continued to escalate. Compared to the 1980s and 90s, the amount of area burned has more than doubled. Data before the early 1980s agrees with this upward trend, but it is important to note that regulatory agencies have deemed this data incomplete and of poor quality. With the excepti...

Looking back at 2019 there are some reasons for optimism, but the issue our precious planet is facing has not changed. The biggest ever climate change demonstrations and strikes happened in 2019. This shows us that young people are worried about their future; they are ready to act, but they still don’t have a real model to follow. More and more cou...

After almost ten years of climate action a lot has been done and certainly more is to be done for all to be ready for climate change. Hundreds and Thousands of people are working to make their villages and island nations more Food, Water and Energy secure. People are taking action to meet the Climate Emergency. We can only see the Climate complianc...

Now I know that I want to be careful with what I eat, and really, not putting chemicals on my food is a good place to start. When the RVA students, Ingrida, Ceren and Paulus and their teacher Dani, first came, I was in the house. It was just Jasmin and them out there building the garden. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say. I was stubborn. I...

Arguably the biggest refugee crisis in the world right now, the diaspora created by the Syrian civil war is numbering in the millions. A constant flow of people are seeking asylum daily in neighboring countries like Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and many European nations. The war played a significant role as a source of instability in the Middle East, an...

A recurring theme of the 2020 pandemic seems to be highlighting existing issues that have been exacerbated by the way our world screeched to a halt. Changes in how we purchase, consume, and move about the world have illuminated difficulties in our environment, economy, and entertainment industries. Food waste is a global problem, with estimates of ...

My time at Richmond Vale Academy has come to an end. When I just arrived I was very proud at myself because I’m not a traveler at all. When I’m at home I rather stay close to the people and animals I love. I saw Stina’s videos on YouTube about two years ago. She was dancing and communicating with her horses in a way I really liked, she inspired me....

Seven months and two weeks. Traveling is always a big education and has the power to change you as a person if you let it, at least from what I have experienced. However, staying in a place together with people­ who want to change the world, learn about yourself through horses at the same time as you live a simple community life in nature with ever...

When I came to RVA, I had no belief and no confidence in myself. Everything I did came with thoughts that said I wasn’t good enough, I’m doing it wrong, I’m not worthy and I can’t do it. I was stuck in a blame- guilt- pain cycle and couldn’t find my way out. I was trapped inside myself, in my trauma and fears. The walls I put up for protection had ...

Studying the environment is difficult because we often can’t isolate the world from all of the factors that make it up. For example, it’s difficult to measure the effects of air quality on populations of the world because conditions are so varied. Many underdeveloped countries have poor air quality, but also have populations for which smoking is a ...

Yemen, being the poorest Arab nation, is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian, man-made crisis with more than 24 million people - an astounding 80% of the population - in need of humanitarian assistance due to famine, disease and war, including 12 million children. The background to the crisis in Yemen began from the Arab Spring of 2011, when a...