St. James Secondary earns top spot at RBC Young Leaders 2026

St. James Sec­ondary School cap­tured the top prize at the 2026 RBC Young Lead­ers pro­gramme, with its project, WORM – Waste Op­ti­miza­tion Re­silience Move­ment.

The ini­tia­tive earned the school $100,000 to tack­le school waste through bi­o­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion and prac­ti­cal de­sign.

Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege se­cured sec­ond place and $50,000 for de­sign­ing a pro­gres­sive school-based ecosys­tem fea­tur­ing plant walls, a green­house, and re­cy­cled-ma­te­r­i­al seat­ing, all sup­port­ed by rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and sim­ple ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems. Bat­tery-pow­ered sen­sors al­low stu­dents to col­lect re­al-time tem­per­a­ture and air qual­i­ty da­ta, turn­ing the cam­pus in­to a liv­ing sci­ence lab.

In third po­si­tion was Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va, with Bot­tle Back, a stu­dent-led ini­tia­tive that trans­forms plas­tic waste in­to re­al en­vi­ron­men­tal and fi­nan­cial val­ue us­ing two-bin sort­ing sys­tems, AC con­den­sate re­cov­ery, and bot­tle-drip ir­ri­ga­tion to cut cam­pus waste and wa­ter us­age si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. The pro­gramme funds green spaces at the school and strength­ens dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness. They earned $25,000 for their ef­forts.

The three-month RBC Young Lead­ers pro­gramme chal­lenged Form IV stu­dents to de­vel­op prac­ti­cal, com­mu­ni­ty-fo­cused so­lu­tions aligned with this year’s theme: Re­silient by De­sign — In­no­vat­ing for Cli­mate and Com­mu­ni­ty.

Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing in this year’s com­pe­ti­tion were Bish­op Anstey High School (Port-of-Spain), Holy Name Con­vent, Maple Leaf In­ter­na­tion­al School, Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School, and St. Stephen’s Col­lege.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor RBC Roy­al Bank Trinidad and To­ba­go, Marc Jar­dine is a for­mer Young Leader.

“I’m stand­ing here as a man­ag­ing di­rec­tor be­cause some­one once de­cid­ed to in­vest in a young per­son — and that in­vest­ment changed every­thing,” Jar­dine told those gath­ered at the awards cer­e­mo­ny.

He added: “The Young Lead­ers Pro­gramme gives stu­dents a re­al chal­lenge, re­al sup­port, and a re­al plat­form. Watch­ing them walk in as stu­dents and walk out as prob­lem-solvers, pre­sen­ters, and lead­ers — that trans­for­ma­tion is the best in­vest­ment we can make.”

Spe­cial awards were al­so giv­en for Best Writ­ten pro­pos­al, which went to Maple Leaf In­ter­na­tion­al School, and Most In­no­v­a­tive Pro­pos­al, which was won by St James Sec­ondary. Ni­ti Shar­ma of Lak­sh­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege was recog­nised as Best In­di­vid­ual Pre­sen­ter while her school was recog­nised for de­liv­er­ing the Best Pre­sen­ta­tion.

Em­cees for the awards cer­e­mo­ny, which was held at Court­yard Mar­riott, were Patrick “Hy­pe­man” Alex­is and Shevonne Metivi­er.

The RBC Young Lead­ers pro­gram con­tin­ues to serve as a plat­form for de­vel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of change-mak­ers. The pro­gramme is al­so host­ed in The Ba­hamas, and Cay­man Is­lands with Bar­ba­dos host­ing its in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion this year.