Barbados must urgently invest in equipping its youth with the skills and opportunities to drive the island’s clean energy revolution, Minister of Energy Senator Lisa Cummins said, as she called for greater parental and institutional support at the 2025 Energy Summer Camp Showcase in Queen’s Park.
The camp, held at the Solar House, Queen’s Park, Constitution Road, aimed to teach young participants about different forms of energy, renewable sources, conservation, and sustainable practices in an age-appropriate and engaging way. Campers also enjoyed hands-on activities integrated into the broader programme through collaboration with camp directors and visiting agencies.
Senator Cummins praised the children for their enthusiasm, stressing that their involvement comes at a time when the island faces a shortage of key skills in the energy sector.
“We have a shortage at this time of skills in Barbados. There are so many skills that the energy sector needs, so many skills that we’re now developing, and I’m talking to you as parents in preparation for these kids going back into school right now. In a little while later on today, we will have some follow-on meetings as we prepare to launch Barbados’s first major onshore wind farm.”
Drawing on the campers’ own experiences, she connected their windmill projects to the island’s future renewable energy plans.
“Those windmills that you were doing in camp, imagine seeing some huge ones down in St Lucy, 180m tall, up in the air generating energy to be able to support Barbados’s energy transition. Can you imagine you becoming the engineers working on the next wind farms in Barbados? I can imagine it, so you need to help them to make those choices.”
She also revealed plans for the imminent launch of a battery energy storage system, noting its role in powering modern buildings.
“A little later on, anytime from now we’re going to be launching a battery energy storage system . . . now we have real different types of technology to power energy systems. So a solar house is now going to be having a battery with a new technology that helps to power a building. You have batteries in your cars… so I want you to see yourselves, parents, you to see them as the future of the skills that Barbados will need. The future engineers, the future energy economists, the future energy planners – I need you to see them as that future and I need you to encourage them.”
Senator Cummins called on parents to encourage their daughters to venture into the traditionally male-dominated industry.
“When they go into school, especially these young ladies, not so much the young men in the same way, we want to make sure that we don’t tell our children ‘this is not for you’, that’s a ‘male area’. Energy is a traditionally male-dominated sector and I am so excited by the number of young women that we see here; they’re mirrored by the young women in our ministry and in our team, and I want you to feel as though you can change the whole world.”
She further highlighted the ministry’s ongoing collaboration with the Ministry of Education to embed energy transition studies into the school curriculum alongside the national financial literacy programme.
“We have just rolled out and we expect that the financial literacy programme that you’ll hear about more next week . . . by next year, next school year [it] should be in 90 schools, public and primary, that equally that every school has a curriculum for the energy transition and to empower these kids not just in a week, not just two weeks, but in a dedicated curriculum embedded in our school.
“The Ministry of Education at the level of the minister and the chief education officer have given their full support to the integration of these programmes into their school, and I want to pledge the commitment of this ministry, the Ministry of Energy and Business, we are not just interested in a week camp or in a two-week camp but to sustain that interest going forward by making it available all year round in our schools and making it available to your children,” she said. (SB)
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