The Msgr. Patrick Anthony Folk Research Centre continues to work towards its vision of promoting the role of culture as the centre of national development.
Following the global push towards sustainability, the FRC undertook a project, funded primarily by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), with co-funding from the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC), to indigenise and popularise the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Saint Lucia.
The problem is not just about hearing of the SDGs; it is, more importantly, about understanding and embracing the SDGs. In Saint Lucia, people, including government and community leaders, have demonstrated limited or no knowledge of the SDGs and, thus, are unable to act on it and/or to demand action from their government and organisations. A key reason is that Saint Lucia is a multilingual society in which national policy is generally articulated in one of the least used languages – formal English. The other two languages, the Saint Lucian English Vernacular and the Kwéyòl are spoken by the majority. Many people, therefore, are marginalized by virtue of the hegemony of English and/or low levels of education (which results in a largely non-reading population). Accordingly, there is need “to support them so they are able to understand the international conventions and Global Goals in their own languages” (UN SDG Action Campaign), to advocate for themselves and to align development plans related to gender equality, climate action, quality education and peace and justice to the global vision articulated in Agenda 2030.
The SDGs have been translated into Kwéyòl, and content describing the SDGs and their relevance for us here in Saint Lucia has been produced and published on the FRC’s various social media platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. The outputs from this project, which ended in 2022, are available via the links below:
- a booklet written in Kwéyòl by contributors from various communities;
- posters with the SDGs in English Kwéyòl and;
- SDGs pamphlet listing the goals in English, side-by-side with Kwéyòl
