There is a lack of opportunities for St Lucian residents to explore Space-related careers, activities and hobbies. Before the launch of our organisation, St LUcia National Astronomy Association (LUNAA), there were no avenues to support astronomy enthusiasts to explore astronomy further. To the wider general public, there is a misconception that participation in astronomy and other space-related fields is not attainable for a small, developing island like St Lucia and those in the Caribbean. There is also a lack of awareness on the island of the benefits of astronomy to Saint Lucia’s sustainable development.
In 2023, St Lucia had over 1 million visitors and the current tours available for visitors mostly happen during the day (e.g. boat cruises). Night time entertainment is usually centred on restaurants and bars. Since LUNAA was founded in 2018, we have had visitors consistently reach out to our organisation via our social media pages to inquire about stargazing locations and/or events. We partnered with a major hotel to offer stargazing as part of their guest offering and received very positive feedback. However, we simply do not have enough trained amateur astronomers to keep these tours running on a consistent basis.
Proposed Solution:
This project aims to host an in-depth, bespoke Stargazing Training Programme in St Lucia to give unemployed youth (age 16-35) the necessary knowledge and resources to learn about positional and observational astronomy. It will allow participants to apply this theory by training them on how to use the naked eye, amateur telescopes and binoculars to observe the sky.
The social enterprise that will be running this project, LUNAA Journeys, has an objective to provide regular, guided stargazing tours that will allow participants to explore and learn more about the Caribbean night sky. There is a limited number of St Lucian residents who have the expertise to guide a tour like this but we have many enthusiasts who are eager to learn from our few local experts.
This training programme will expand the pool of residents that LUNAA Journeys will employ to successfully run stargazing tours and allow the passion for exploring the night sky to grow on the island as we would be able to sustain regular tours from the larger pool of tour guides this project will create upon completion. Leading these tours would continue to consolidate the guides’ knowledge and increase the popularity of stargazing amongst the St Lucian population.
Activities:
Campaign to promote training programme while sharing fun and educational astronomy facts to spark interest in future stargazing tours
Virtual workshops on observational and positional astronomy
In person workshops for telescope, binocular training
