Khadijah Stewart makes environmentalism cool

Growing up in the once verdant Santa Cruz valley, Khadijah Stewart was always surrounded by greenery. She fondly remembers enjoying the river in Pipiol, hikes to a waterfall and discovering the community's hidden springs.

While her love for her community's environment grew, she noticed that the love other people had for it was gradually decreasing, and that the quality of the area's environment's became marred by quarrying; the river becoming polluted

"Santa Cruz looked lovely (then) but now, that's a next story," Stewart told WMN. The 27-year-old said this led her to a life of environmentalism.

"My street had, like, five houses when I was small. If you pass on my street now, as the years went by, the whole street is filled with houses."

The same has happened in many communities in Santa Cruz and this rapid development has affected the area's biodiversity.

"Long ago we had snakes and many animals coming in our yards but now if you find a snake that's rare. By six o'clock the streets were filled with bats but not so much any more. If a bat flies into your house that's a special guest."

While she observed these changes, she did not fully understand them until studying environmental science during sixth form at St Joseph's Convent, Port of Spain.

The urge to help protect the environment grew and she was prepared to leave behind her dreams of becoming a lawyer.

Stewart studied geography and environmental management at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine campus, then went on to complete a in master's degree in sustainable development with management at Kingston University, London.

"When I finished my master's degree I was unemployed for a while. I was going crazy because I had all this knowledge about environmental issues and I saw horrible information being passed around on social media."

Frustrated, she started the Ecovybz blog in 2017 on World Earth Day (April 22). The blog's purpose was educate people on environmental issues in simple language in order to counter the misinformation that was being shared online.

"Most of the time you have policy makers talking to policy makers, scientists talking to scientists but nobody (was) talking to the general public that is not environmentally aware."

With the exception of one UWI project, for which she was required to start a blog, Stewart had no prior experience with blogging but experimented with WordPress (a popular content management system used to create blogs and websites) to create Ecovybz.

"Just 37 people read my first blog post. I kept writing knowing I had to put my work out there so it will pick up interest."

For months she was consistent in posting until her blog post, Just Another Oil Spill in TT, garnered attention. The post discussed Petrotrin's April 2017 oil spill which affected not only Trinidad but also areas the eastern coast of Venezuela near Guiria. Stewart explained on her blog that it was only one high-profile oil spill of many in TT.

Her most engaged blog post to date has been Maracas Mayhem, which discussed the construction activities on Maracas Beach.

"I named the blog Ecovybz because I wanted people to know caring for the environment was a cool vibes and way of life. I did want people to think caring for the environment was something extreme or about people hugging trees."

In addition to sharing information using Ecovybz, she has found also represented TT at international environmental discussions.

In 2018 she became a member of the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPfW) and attended the World Water Forum in Brazil. Her capacity to engage on the topic of water resources developed during a 2017 internship at the TT Water Resources Agency.

Since then, she has volunteered as WYPfW's communications officer and has been using the platform to highlight the effect of natural disasters on water resources in the Caribbean.

"I really like meeting people from other countries and then realising we are all pretty much the same though we may have one or two differences based on culture."

For three weeks, in 2019, she sailed on the Japanese-funded Peace Boat from Malta to New York. The Peace Boat is an initiative of the Japanese government through which citizens of Japan are educated on global issues.

On the boat she worked with seven other young people from small island developing states (SIDs) to create educational material on oceans and climate change. Her knowledge on the topics were again tested when she attended the 2019 Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit in Oslo.

Stewart said these experiences have shown her the power of giving people on the front-line of environmental issue, especially those from SIDs, a platform to tell their stories.

"With all the knowledge I have, I really want TT to know that environmentalism is not a trend but a way of life. It's very easy to adopt."

In 2019 she launched the Ecovybz Environmental Creatives, a small business developed to create environmental educational tools for children and provide environmental consultancy services. She hopes this will be her next step in creating a more environmentally conscious society and putting the skills she have acquired to use.

And while she works towards creating a balance with how people interact with the environment, she is working to create a balance in her personal life. She is slowly learning the importance of relaxing and that travelling is one way of doing that.

Her love for travel has led her to France, Italy, Germany, Prague, Malta, Morocco, Spain, USA, Curacao, St Kitts, Venezuela, Denmark, Norway, Brazil and Panama. She has tried the foods and visited the beaches of these countries. She also still enjoys a good hike -- and is still afraid of snake and spiders.