14 Oct 2016

The St. Maarten National Commission for UNESCO would like to congratulate Mr. Denicio Wyatte of Spaceless Gardens for commencing the Agri \ Cultural Training Skill Enhancement Program in the St. Peters Community. Spaceless Gardens is a recipient of funding from UNESCO via the Participation Programme 2016-2017.

The goal of this Agri \ Cultural Training Program is to spark interest in agriculture once more, and to enhance the skills of community members and school children, while allowing them to embrace and appreciate the implementation of household and community gardening and its importance. This training program will educate the participants about the importance of agriculture to the people of St. Maarten in the past, present and future, and will introduce participants to gardening techniques that were utilized in the past, and modern techniques.

Another goal of the program is to focus on the economic benefits of promoting and encouraging agriculture such as: job employment for the unemployed, more spending power of the people with the growing of their own food, and more healthy eating.

The objectives are to:

  1. Provide community members with the tools and knowledge to grow their own fruits and vegetables in small backyard gardens
  2. Provide knowledge and information to school children on gardening practices that can be replicated in their own homes
  3. Increase knowledge of techniques and technologies to enable households to grow their own fruits and vegetables
  4. Increase number of households growing their own produce for personal use or sale
  5. Encourage entrepreneurship (skills training leading to self-employment opportunities) through small agribusinesses, which may also be of interest to some participants
  6. Encourage other communities and their members to start community gardens and community markets to provide job opportunities, to promote healthy eating, and purchasing of local crops/ products

The groundbreaking project was featured in our local newspaper, The Daily Herald in the month of September.    Article – Sept. 6, 2016 (Daily Herald)

St. Peters Gardening Project

Visit to St. Peters Community Garden

2nd from left in white shirt, Mr. Denicio Wyatte, initiator of the program

 

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