Hello Pitt Business, I am Natividad Torres, a student currently enrolled in the Trinidad Global Service-Learning program, and this blog post is to give more context about our Trinidad partner: Nature Seekers.  

Nature Seekers is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Matura, Trinidad that was originally founded for the sole purpose of stopping the turtle poaching that was affecting the leatherback turtle population in Matura. The percentage of turtle poaching in the region was originally at 30%, which was not because the community hated turtles but was instead because the economic factors in the region led them to poaching the turtles for value. The staff at Nature Seekers were able to functionally eliminate poaching from bringing the percentages down to 0%, and at the same time they gained a lot of respect in the Matura community as they continued to grow. This puts them in a very interesting position: what does an NGO do when it accomplishes the goal it sets out to achieve? Of course, there are more aspects of turtle conservation than stopping poaching, but Nature Seekers expanded their scope to economic and community development efforts in Trinidad as well, all with the intention of focusing on the turtle conservation first. Currently Nature Seekers will organize beach cleanings to stop the littering that is still prevalent on the beaches and will recycle any of the glass into jewelry that will then fund Nature Seekers efforts. They also have many members of their community involved in so many different aspects of what their goals align with. This is all to say that what they asked from us Pitt students is something that relates to their current economic and community development efforts but also cannot be fully realized without the previous context.  

Our deliverable is to provide a two-day training course (6 hours per day) on project management and grant writing. This was a specific request from Nature Seekers as it would equip their community to develop their own proposals and teams for future projects in the Matura region, which could help to keep their current and future members staying in Matura for future opportunities. Not only does this help give the Matura more power for their own success, but it would also ensure that Nature Seekers would have community projects that would likely help equip their future staff members to be successful. This stays true to their current goals of economic development in the region and our hope as a team is that this training is useful to them and can be used as a starting point for many unique and useful projects in the region. 

In terms of the project, our group is looking forward to being able to communicate face-to-face about our deliverables and tweak presentations, activities, and templates based on what Nature Seekers’ staff recommends. We have had a general overview of what specifically could be useful from project management and grant writing, but it will be interesting what they say could be tailored more towards Trinidad. Not dissimilar to the United States, securing grants in Trinidad can come with challenges and politics that as a Pitt student will probably not get the full scope on. Anything related to the intricacies of grant writing that we may not have accounted for is what I would like to hear from them and then to be able to create a plan to address said issue within our deliverables as well.  

While that is the main goal of what we plan to get done in Trinidad, there is a more unstructured action we should be taking while in-country: talking to anyone and everyone, especially during our time in Matura. This is essential to not only get perspective of the staff at Nature Seekers but the people in the community that we may pass or who may actively be working with Nature Seekers. It would also be interested while in Port of Spain to get the perspectives on Trinis who may be from many different parts of the island and find out what the more urban capital may have offered to some of the more remote places on the island. All of this would help us a group gain more context that we could internalize way more than a lecture or a reading.  

I do think that their friendliness and laissez-faire approach as a general culture is something as a whole I will appreciate but in the context of a business meeting I do think it could end up being a conflict to the American norms. Americans, to a fault, will fill their schedules with more than they can reasonably effectively execute in a day and thus punctuality is a necessity in our lives. I do not have a clue about how this will affect our meeting with Nature Seekers in our different approaches in our cultures; however, I do believe this can be an issue outside of business as well. We were told before our departure that Trinis take the gentle gesture of saying ‘Hello’ to each other very seriously and will take offense to that being ignored. We also were told the airport in Port of Spain can be difficult in that they tend to take their time with their guests, at least way more so than airports do in the United States.  

I think that the reading and class discussion that has impacted me the most as I prepare to go in-country has been “Building an Ethical Partnership.” The article dives deep into what is neccesary for the success of a program like global service-learning, with respect, integrity, accountability and general care for others being a few of the main themes from the article. However, there is one area where I think is the most important theme: collaboration. Collaboration on a project like GSL is incredibly important; it is what sets a program like this apart from just a typical service or volunteerism. There is a need for service and volunteerism, but what one may get out of it is much more intrinsic whereas the collaboration between Pitt (and by association us students) and Nature Seekers is built into the program. This program and the partnership thrive from us students getting skills and experiences while providing our client with an effective deliverable that will hopefully help Matura in ways that will still affect the future projects students will do. I am very excited to depart and be a small part of this partnership.