 Welcome to TV 30 a production of the government information service and NTN I am your host Kendall Eugene and with me we have the university of the month lecturer with the Kevin Stapleton and Kevin welcome to the show thank you for having me thank you for being here Kevin let's jump right into it but not on what you are here for and the folks know a little bit about yourself about me yeah briefly so good good so as you said my name is Kevin Stapleton I'm a lecturer at the University of Vermont I've been there for almost 20 years now and I teach courses in economics and community development international development I'm also an economist for the state of Vermont and on a personal level I have been coming to St. Lucia now for basically 17 years I believe 17 years my family has come down before I have a wife and child at home who are currently digging their way out of the snow so so this is a pretty good place to be right now yes welcome to the warmth yes okay so your reasons for being here summarize that briefly first so we will know exactly what Kevin is here for it's not holiday so I came first in 2006 as a graduate student as part of a class at the University of Vermont and during that trip fell in love with it as I think that's safe to say most people who come here do and in 2010 they were looking for a new person to teach that course I was available to do it I was excited to do it and at this point I come back year after year because we have developed such great project partners down here such great relationships with the people down here I have people down here I call my friends and at this point my involvement is primarily an attempt to show students the beautiful island and to get them involved in projects that I believe are meaningful for them and being full for the for our project partners okay let's talk a little bit about those projects how many do you have in total five mm-hmm yeah all right and what are the exactly okay I should give a detailed description now yeah okay you can start with us so we have two projects through the Consumer Affairs Department of the Department of Commerce that are are closely related one of them is a survey of St. Lucian's around changes price changes inflation price increases okay so that survey was designed in cooperation with the Consumer Affairs Department Ms. Wendy Frederick and her staff Lyra Joseph and others that survey is trying to collect quantitative data about how inflation is impacting families it's asking very clearly which which areas of price increases are impacting them the most is it costs is it increasing the cost of food is it increasing the cost of medical supplies because I think it's my understanding of inflation in St. Lucia which sort of matches a worldwide trend is that it's very broad it's pretty much everything so we're trying to get some information for them to help policymakers better understand how St. Lucian's are being impacted by inflation and you know the data is available if you want to know which products are more expensive right that data is readily available if you want to know how that is impacting individual families that's not something that has been looked at very closely so we're hoping to gather that information through surveys we're surveying and we surveyed and view for it on the first day in Sufrere yesterday castries today and Rodney Bay tomorrow and if anybody's watching this and you're out in those areas you'll see our students out and about talking to people we'd love to get any input people have related to that project is a more qualitative project which is speaking with St. Lucian's on camera having somewhat long more detailed conversations about inflation about price increases about how that is impacting their lives okay so that the output of that project will be a brief probably three to five minute video they really just put some some names and faces and thoughts with the data we collected all right so what can them locals expect to encounter and at what locations will you be apart from those you just mentioned are there plans for other locations so tomorrow there will be a group filming in castries doing the the longer form interviews the sort of qualitative data work or qualitative information we're collecting they will be in both castries and Rodney Bay tomorrow the survey group is castries today and Rodney Bay, Rodney Bay and Groselay tomorrow you will see if you're out and about you might see it's four of our students for University of Vermont students carrying clipboards around they kind of stand out they are at first glance tourists and at second glance you think why are they carrying clipboards so or cameras or video cameras right so but they're out and about and they'd love to talk to anyone who would who's interested in giving input at the end of this we will provide all the information to the consumer affairs department so the data will be available to anyone okay what is the hope what do you hope for the outcome of that survey to be especially with the analysis what are you expecting to get from it what's the revelation so we work with the consumer affairs department each year on what topic we should survey on and for 19 years now I think we've conducted a survey on a topic of their choosing but it's an issue that seems important to them and this year obviously inflation is a major issue worldwide right right and it's it's much bigger than just st lusia but for the consumer affairs department in the department of commerce or the ministry of commerce what we do is provide the information so that they can make more informed policy decisions we are not policymakers we collect the information we share it with them I think the hope is that we just help the ministry and policymakers have a somewhat better informed understanding of the issue last year we did that with covid in the past we're done with bank fees and the minibus system and it's just an opportunity for people making decisions to do so with slightly better information is that part of uh or do that tie into the broader picture for you at the university with all what you're doing here coming over bringing the students along with you does that tie into a broader picture for you at the university of remod yeah so there's the sort of two aspects to that one is that what we mentioned briefly already inflation is a worldwide problem yes right yes and this is an opportunity to take a small sliver of that like we did with covid last year and look at one area and how it's impacting people knowing that the impacts are while they differ country to country are pretty universal right people are made worse off when prices rise and their salaries don't or their income doesn't rise as fast as inflation um but trying to get an idea of what that actually means for households is helpful for us in vermont as well right um more broadly in the years that we've been coming down the students gain tremendous insight into uh a lot of the stuff they've been learning about the students who come down are generally seniors in the final year of school and this takes all of the things they've learned in academia and asks them to put it to work right the research methods the uh the data analysis so for us what it means for us is giving students a real world opportunity to do some meaningful work now with um bringing in the real world right something that i have um noticed a lot of the universities are really gearing into not just the classroom but taking you outside of it you guys have taken them way outside way yes all right the problem to a different country um different cultures how are they enjoying and adapting to um the change of climate and of course the change of culture well the we'll start with the easy part when you're talking about the change of climate um it's i don't know exactly what it is but it's probably negative five Celsius there today and it's snowing so the joke part of the answer writes itself right happy to be here love it here it's great um but uh more more importantly the students come here and uh first off they get to experience a part of the world the most and they've not been to and a culture that is is not completely dissimilar from the united states but uh there's just enough difference that students have to step out of their comfort zone just a little bit to experience the island and we work hard to make sure that all of our projects have students experiencing st lucia as st lucia is for example uh that probably didn't make much sense but for example the students take the mini bus everywhere they go and um we could probably budget for hiring taxis for them to go everywhere but we don't because we want them to experience the island we want them to take a bus from few fort to castries every day or a couple days and see what that is like uh we we go out of our way we stay in rodney bay these days but we go out of our way to make sure that they experience st lucia food we eat at uh local restaurants in grozellay and in sufrere um we do as much as we can to absorb them in the st lucia culture so that when they go home so when they go home they have more than just pictures of the pitot which are beautiful you cannot say not but that their experience is somewhat deeper than your average tourist all right now you said there were five projects in total yep we spoke about one two two yeah yeah and um we had to call that two okay we have a third project yep okay um a kitchen garden yes tell us about that right so this is our oldest project uh over the past i'm gonna call it 20 years it's probably 18 to be exact but for the past 20 years give or take uh every year we have worked with one school in st lucia to either develop or enhance a garden on their on their grounds this year it happens to be the camille henry school in castries but we have worked i mapped it out last year and uh i should have brought that with me but we have worked in schools from viewfort salt bus sufrere all across the island and each time we there are two components there's either developing or fixing a garden plot if and then also working with the students to understand the relationship between food production and food security giving students an opportunity to learn about producing your own food the sort of financial independence that can come from being able to produce your own food and giving the school an opportunity to create a learning space in that garden and we work hard to do that and we we uh provide activity for the children that we hope will spark an interest in agriculture now you mentioned the schools that you have done the gardens that previously and what would the results of those gardens so well some schools still have the gardens they're still active other schools over time you know the garden they don't maintain it it loses its but regardless of whether the school maintains the garden 20 years later and i'd like to go back to the school where we started and see if they're so using that garden but regardless of whether the school maintains the garden the student experience is carried on and for our students and i'd like to think for the st. lusian students as well in the short time we're here they form really really fun relationships with the young people and while we get to experience st lusia the young people in the schools get to experience some people that are different from them right yeah and learn from them and i think the schools appreciate the energy that we bring down to you know these are 20 something 20 something age college students full of life full of energy can't wait to get down here start to work and i think that is reflected in the excitement that it creates now you previously met with the minister for commerce briefly tell us how does this initiative fit in with the goal that objective she stated right so one of her emphasis was trying to re-engage young people in agriculture because just like in the united states it seems listening to her that um sort of the average age of a farmer is old enough to be concerning right because young people don't seem to have the interest in agriculture the zeal is not there what's that the zeal is not there yes yes yes and you know it it's understandable because the food's all available in the supermarket right so um but she expressed a strong interest in trying to engage students younger students in agriculture again and i think this is an important part of that we work with uh when the united states we would call late elementary school but fourth fifth sixth graders and we are hoping that you're not going to get all of them but if you can get one or two each year to really engage in agriculture and spark an interest in that or we give them seeds to bring home we give them plantings to bring home but if you just one or two of them each year gains an interest in that uh it can have a gradual but meaningful impact on her goal to to re-engage agriculture all right we'll take a quick break and when we get back we will have more with Mr Stapleton he is of course the lecturer at the University of Vermont here with the five projects in total for our young people maybe even take it to their parents too of the St Lucia Tv30 i'm your host Kendall Eugene we'll be right back welcome back to tv 30 i am your host Kendall Eugene here with us this morning is Mr Kevin Stapleton lecturer at the University of Vermont and today we're discussing a few projects that they have collaborated with various agencies in St Lucia on and Mr Stapleton again welcome thank you and speaking of collaborating with agencies in St Lucia i am realized that the university also collaborated with the St Lucia National Trust of course that is to improve the collective appreciation for our heritage i'm someone who believes that a sense of national pride is needed must have a sense of national pride but the way to that the way to get there is by understanding your island your country where you're from tell us about the collaboration between you and the national trust please so this year our national trust project is primarily focused on pigeon island pigeon point i'm never sure which one but so primarily focused on pigeon island and improving access to resources there and educational resources there one thing that we did is spent a good part of time going through the national trust website and adding content fixing broken links which you know it happens with every non-profit organization trying they don't have the time to so we're helping with that which is very tangible right like there are 67 dead links and here's how we fix them things and here's some nice photos for that but also at pigeon island we are working with them to improve the educational materials that they provide we are working with them on a on an interactive map that will take people around the the island to learn about the the various things that are there as i say this i'm realizing i don't know all that much about the death for all these years here but the idea is to improve educational opportunities for st lucians which is part of increasing people's the awareness awareness and when you're when you understand your heritage you better appreciate it more the history is very important yes and the website is full of information that can benefit so i can understand why the dead links that you were trying to revive is extra important to getting the user engaged and learning more on the island and of course the national trust itself i should say in defense of the national trust real quick they found 67 concerns on the website they weren't all dead link there's not i don't it wasn't 67 dead links but it was 67 places where the website could be optimized all right right let's make it better yeah all right yep yep so the steps that were taken or discussed um was it in aid of achieving a specific goal did it get to that goal uh the well the the goal is to improve educational opportunities for st lucians about Hitchin island the objective was to improve the materials that are available uh and we have accomplished that excellent but this project is not over i expect that in future years we will continue to work with the national trust they've been a great partner um Augustine Dominic in particular was our original project partner down there they've affinola whose last name is escaping me over the years we built a good relationship with them and i think this project has a lot of potential excellent um the particular areas of focus a very specific area you're looking at with the collaboration with you and the national trust or we look at everything holistically holistically right and every year the relationship gets a little deeper and the work that we do changes a little bit but it's really driven by them what are their needs what can we do to support their work that will also provide a meaningful experience for our students and we'll probably talk about this in a minute but as much as we talk as if we are coming down to provide resources and information and and person power all that for st lucia uh the biggest reward is for our students and the learning that they gain by taking part in the program i think we could go into that now yeah sure all right so let's talk about the experience and of course how much of the um benefit it is for the students how meaningful is it to them it i i can't begin to describe how meaningful it is for them uh we've brought over the years must be somewhere in the range of 300 students down here almost to a student i think they would tell you that this was the most impactful experience they had in college during their four years at the university of monterey every year they're at school it really does tie together all of the things that so just as an easy example students in our program community development applied economics they learned about international development and what what creates economic growth and how small island developing states grow and how and the challenges of going there and then they also learn about research methods and how to do quantitative and qualitative research um they learn about sustainability and environmental sustainability but after three years of learning about that in a classroom they come down here and put all of those skills to work and i think they would tell you that not just because it's a beautiful place but also because it's impactful their experience here is sort of the bow tie on on their um on their college experience excellent now i understand that all of this here is a mutually beneficial agreement um in that staff from the ministry of commerce can also access educational opportunities what are some of the programs that staff can or have accessed yeah so prior to the pandemic for a couple of years i believe a dozen staff somewhere around the range of a dozen staff from the consumer affairs department traveled to the university of vermont for trainings around uh we have a very large consumer assistance program which is meant to help consumers when they feel they've been wronged right which is not all that different than what cad does um so we offered training in that and also in research methods when they came to vermont and we would like to be able to return to that we are also every year when we come down we provide training for staff in the consumer affairs department around research methods around technical writing so that they can better do their work and then we are hoping in the very near future to be able to expand those efforts and have some online trainings that st lucian staff within the department ministry of the ministry of commerce and access okay excellent um this is the 29th anniversary of the cooperation agreement how have that been for you guys amazing truly amazing the idea that 20 years ago dr jane kolidinsky and uh mr phil McClearn met a conference and hatched this idea and 20 years later and this is my i believe my 13th year 14th year maybe um it is still going strong it is the oldest remaining international program at the university of vermont we feel like we are a part of the consumer affairs department that we provide some benefit to them they provide amazing opportunities for our students um it is truly uh the the one of probably the most important international relationship at the university of vermont and um the the impact on students is immeasurable now personally you know right educationally we understand what the impact has been but personally how has it been for the team you know the visit here and everything how has it been for them for for my students or yep so uh i come down over here with another professor thomas to sisto um different students every year but for them this year uh it's been as i said it's it's been a very rewarding educational experience for them it always is um they every year find for me new insights into saint lucha they get to experience their first uh saltfish which sometimes they think it's good but usually you know it's it's it's a it's a different yes it's different yes but you know they they they get to experience um all of the unique things that make saint lucha saint lucha and uh and this year is no different and it's been great and i i just say um and i don't know if this is i don't know what's the question but for me personally yeah personally um when i first started coming it felt like an amazing research opportunity amazing opportunity to go somewhere nice by the third or fourth year i was coming it felt like i was um starting to come home every year and by now my family has been here more than once uh it this has become part of my family and i look forward to it every year i i have friends down here i when i call my wife she asks how i won't name names but how that was doing um it is a part of my life and a part of my family's life and uh i have to i have to uh pinch myself once in a while that i have landed in such a great opportunity over the years excellent um can we see other projects being implemented in the future as we get ready to conclude yeah so we we'll be back next year um there will undoubtedly be another survey um there will undoubtedly be work with the national trust we'll probably work in the school again but i will say if there's any organizations or government agencies or NGOs out there they're interested in collaboration we are always looking for new project partners i think and if um if anyone wants to reach out we would love to speak with them about ideas and options that we can provide how can we get more information on the project that has already been completed where do we go um the easiest way to do that would be to reach out to me it's kevin dot stapleton sgap le to n at you via zin victor amazon michael dot edu you can also reach out to consumer affairs department they have a long history but i'm happy to speak with anyone who wants to learn more excellent i'm exasperated thank you so much for being our guest today on our tv 30 great all this is a pleasure having you here with us and give our regards to the family we'll do thank you very much folks this has been tv 30 the production of the government information service and ntn i'm your host kendall yugin thank you for joining have a great day bye bye now