Carmen Renee Memorial Primary School was named the winner of the inaugural Green Champions Challenge 2026 yesterday, capping a four-week environmental campaign that mobilised more than 2,400 primary school students across five Saint Lucian schools to collect electronic waste and aluminum cans for proper recycling.
At a prize giving ceremony held yesterday:
- Carmen Renee Memorial School received the Massy Stores Champions Award, comprising EC$1,500 in Massy Stores vouchers, refreshments for the entire school, and the title of 2026 Green Champions Winner.
- Canon Laurie Anglican Primary School was named First Runner-Up, receiving the LUCELEC Spark Award of EC$1,000 towards a school need.
- Three further schools – St. Aloysius RC Boys School, Ave Maria Girls’ School, and Gordon and Walcott Methodist Memorial School – each received the SLASPA Green Seed Award of EC$333 to fund a small environmental project on their school grounds, such as a backyard garden, a recycling corner, or a tree-planting initiative.
The Green Champions Challenge was coordinated by Greening the Caribbean Inc. (GtC) with the Saint Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority (SLSWMA) as presenting partner, with approval from the GOSL Department of Education and Digital Transformation. This campaign is part of the Greening the Caribbean/IDB Lab-funded Integrated E-Waste Management (IEWM) Project, a national effort to divert hazardous electronic waste from Saint Lucia’s landfill and embed responsible solid waste management and disposal habits in St. Lucian communities.
Over the four-week campaign which started on May 26, students collected 2460 items in total all of which were received at Greening the Caribbean’s recycling centre at Odsan, where they are being safely sorted, disassembled and prepared for export to certified international recycling partners.
The campaign was designed as five community-anchored school events, reaching beyond the schoolyards themselves into more than twelve communities where the students of the five schools reside.
“No single organisation, no single agency, no single sector solves the waste challenge in Saint Lucia. Greening the Caribbean is pleased to work alongside the St. Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority, the Ministry of Education, IDB Lab, and our private sector sponsors on this school led campaign. When the public, private, and community sectors move in the same direction, this is what is possible,” said Wayne Neale, Chief Operations Officer of Greening the Caribbean.
A defining feature of the campaign is its permanence. Each of the five participating schools retains its branded Green Champions collection bin as an ongoing school community recycling drop-off point, ensuring that the work begun during the Challenge continues well beyond the campaign’s close.
Greening the Caribbean has indicated that the Green Champions Challenge is intended to become an annual event, with planning for the 2027 edition expected to begin later this year.
“Every school in this challenge has won something far greater than a prize. They have shown Saint Lucia that our children, supported by a strong coalition of partners and sponsors, can lead a national response to one of the region’s fastest-growing environmental challenges. Ultimately this was never just a competition, it is a school’s community environmental coalition which now leads the way,” explained Sariah Best-Joseph, Communications and Stakeholder Lead of Greening the Caribbean, who coordinated the initiative among the various partners and the schools.
Green Champions Challenge 2026 was made possible through the partnership of Greening the Caribbean Inc., the Saint Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority, the Department of Education and Digital Transformation of the GOSL with financial and in-kind sponsorship from Massy Stores, LUCELEC, and SLASPA.