Dear Friend and future participant, We are happy to welcome you to join one of our programs throughout the year. Richmond Vale Academy is a small non profit in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Most of the teachers have been in St. Vincent for many years and most have been trained in Africa at rural area projects in Zambia, Mozambique, South African ...

Many of the high school students who are close to finishing their studies have a big question in their minds: What do I want to do after this? That was also the question asked by Aster Davis, a young man from Chateaubelair who suddenly found the perfect answer to that question in the most simple way. During his last weeks of high school, Richmond V...

My name is Ms Emris Stapleton, from Chateaubelair. I am a Field Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture. I am also a farmer, an organic gardener and an active community member. The idea of growing food without pesticides and other chemicals is something that has always intrigued me, but I needed expert advice as to where to begin. The opportunity ca...

I am a student at the Richmond Vale Academy situated in St. Vincent and Grenadines and I will share with you my story about manure up to now (5 months). Collecting horse manure with bare hands is a sign of personal change for me! Yes, manure is natural gold but holding it with bare hands and then putting it into sacks by holding, maybe sometimes by...

Today is hump day! For the November Climate Compliance Conference students and facilitator hump day has a special flavour! Since January, Wednesday mornings have been pretty hectic at Richmond Vale Academy as we temporarily move to some villages nearby. From Wednesdays to Fridays, we have been living in Petit Bordel, Rose Bank, Troumaca and Rose Ha...

By Jomo Thomas, St. Vincent. Frustration always overcomes me when people, who are for the most part sensible, logical and rational, get taken for a ride by the establishment media. In fact, the current 'snow job' being done on Venezuela by the mass media reminded me of the wise saying by Malcolm X 'if you are not extremely careful, the media will c...

RVA focuses heavily on sustainable living will have 100 per cent of its electricity generated by renewable energy by May. The move by Richmond Vale Academy (RVA) falls under its 10-year programme, The St. Vincent Climate Compliance (CCCP) 2012 - 2021. Under the programme, the institution has trained hundreds of students to take action as well as in...

"An organic farmer is the best peacemaker today, because there is more violence, more death, more destruction, more wars, through a violent industrial agricultural system. And to shift away from that into an agriculture of peace is what organic farming is doing." - Vandana Shiva Dear Readers In this blog you will see a lot of beautiful pictures fro...

Expectations vs reality for a student at RVA Before coming here, I had a very vague, unclear idea of what my life would be like for the next 6 months living in St. Vincent as a student at RVA. In fact, I made it a choice not to read the details of the program and other people's posts about their experiences living on the island. I wanted to start t...

Calvert: I am 19 years old living in Layou and I have done a 6 months course at RVA. What we do here is to learn about Global Warming and Climate Change, about how some companies are destroying the planet – especially the fossil fuel companies. I'm in the RVA climate change COMPLIANCE CONFERENCE TEAM and I'm going to say a bit about what I have lea...

The year of 2018 has been extra ordinary in so many ways.  I would like to thank all of you who are reading our blogs and news as you are in one way or another - part of making this world a better place. The past year was a breakthrough in so many ways from new classrooms, home gardens, and program developments, fundraising and improving the o...

People coming from Europe have a very unique opportunity to see how the developed world is impacting on developing countries, particularly small island nations like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This can clearly be seen in Saint Vincent because there is such a huge change in the climate and all across the country we can see the devastation that...

Art is a tool that allows us to communicate and express different opinions. During the month of April 2018, our intention was to inspire and strengthen the relation between people and nature. This is what we hoped to achieve while painting a mural in the local Petit Bordel School in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. At the same time, we carried out...

I am currently enrolled in the 18 month "Fighting with the Poor" program at the Richmond Vale Academy. Before coming to the Caribbean, I had worked 8 years for the same company and felt that I wanted a change in my life. The office job was making me unhappy and left me lacking a sense of meaning. I didn't feel like I was contributing anything to th...

The 6 months program is unique in many ways. It provides the students with a practical understanding of topics surrounding sustainable agriculture and climate change adaptation. For most of the students, including me, many of these topics would have maybe always remained theoretical concepts. The program is structured in several "periods", each of ...

My name is Ammon Felix and I am from the Richland, WA, U.S.A. I was part of the Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder with the Poor Program at Richmond Vale Academy from April 2016 - November 2017. During this Time I spent 6 months studying the massive forces in the world that keep many people in poverty. I spent 6 months learning the practicalities of wor...

Tree planting actions and awareness campaigns are an important part of Richmond Vale Academy's curriculum. We partner with many different stakeholders in order to plant the most beneficial trees in various projects. We plant shade trees with schools, fruit trees in communities, give away moringa seedlings for personal backyards, plant mangroves on ...

As my team arrived in St. Vincent and at the Richmond Vale Academy, we decided pretty early that we want to assist in re-establish a farmers market in Chateaubelair, a little village on the North-Leeward side of the main Island of St. Vincent. As there were attempts to build up a farmers market before we came to St. Vincent, which ultimately failed...

Our Solar Project As part of the movement for a more sustainable, eco-friendly Richmond Vale, one of the most recent projects we have embarked on is to become dependent on only solar powered energy. The movement within the renewable energy sector in the modern day is rapidly growing, and so its vital, we as a climate centre, divert away from the ex...

Every Monday and Friday we have what we call morning class. Everyone, teacher, student, guest speaker, is welcome to prepare a presentation about any topic that is of interest to them and share their passion about it. This morning a guest speaker that we love inviting for his passionating talks, came to tell us more about the relationship between U...