Garbage

[rmary]

This is an idea that I have been thinking about for sometime and I thought I would throw it out there to see what you guys think. It actually concerns the problem of garbage in the DR but also education and charity for the schools.

As I am sure most of you know, in Canada and the U.S. (and probably elsewhere) there are "adopt a Park or highway" programs where certain community groups or schools take on responsibility for cleaning up and maintaining certain areas. My idea is to do this in the DR. Get a school to "volunteer" to keep a certain area clean and in return receive their much needed school supplies.

A lot of people have talked about the problem of garbage being one of education, and that has been seen to be the case in both Canada and the U.S. Most of us are old enough to remember the beginnings of the "keep American beautiful" campaigns to clean up the environment. The change in attitude has to start with the kids, and I think it also ought to include some education on WHY it is important to keep their environment clean.

What do you guys think? I am also going to post this at a couple of other boards to see what they think.

Rose

[Chirimoya]

Several months ago I mentioned having seen a group of high school students collecting rubbish on a Sunday in the Santo Domingo botanical gardens as part of an organised community service scheme. I didn't catch the exact name but it appeared to be an established practice.

link to thread

It would be worth finding out what this is and how it works - maybe someone here on the forums can help? I would guess that it happens in the cities but not in smaller towns, so the idea would be to extend the practice to your areas, working with the existing system but introducing the additional element of combining the cleanup campaign with the donation of school supplies.

I think it's an excellent idea: it makes it a more equal relationship between the donor and the recipient when the recipient (in this case the students and their teachers) are doing something worthwhile with the donation as an incentive. By doing this they are not merely passive recipients; they are putting something back in return for the donation which in any case benefits them and their community.

I would go further and suggest that the work be carried out by the students AND community members including the expats, as a way of encouraging more interaction between locals and foreigners.

Chiri

[Chris]

This would be a great thing to do and is an ideal area of co-operation between expats and local people. There is just one thing niggling in the back of my mind - I would want to know that the 'cycle' is complete, i.e, that the garbage that is picked up, is disposed of in a reasonable manner. This is what I've always seen as a problem in helping local people to 'clean up'. Can anyone talk about disposing of garbage?

[Lambada]

If anyone has time to search the Archives of El Caribe Online, I remember seeing a photo & article about a clean up in Santo Domingo, which involved church leaders, school children etc. I think this was maybe to do with either the inauguration, or Malecon Libre - using Malecon as play area for children on a Sunday. I'm pretty certain this was in the last 2 weeks.

[KateP]

Some businesses are also taking care of some of the avenues. Vimenca has several streets where they take care of the plants and small parks and if I'm not mistaken El Embajador also has a stretch. I've seen a few of those but I'm sure that more companies could take part in this also...

[MommC]

A few packs of pencils and several packs of notepaper and a bag of garbage bags used to be "donated" to the local school once a year when I am in Juan Dolio.
The kids get the pencils and paper AFTER they fill the trash bags (easy to do on a Monday as a lot of garbage gets thrown on the streets and beach on the weekend by "city folk"!).
Methinks I'd best revive this one this year!
Thanks for reminding me!

[dawnwil]

An acquaintance told me a while ago that he witnessed a Dominican friend in Boca Chica throw a candy wrapper into the ocean while visiting his boat.

They had a discussion about this; the friend is educated, a doctor and a very wealthy man... he admitted that when in the US he would never do so.

It would seem that the threat of hefty fines made a difference... one wonders about the real differences between first and third world countries.

I don't like to think it's true, but I do know that idiots are everywhere.

I am mortified to see the sheer volume of garbage strewn about Sosua beach on Sundays; I used to swim daily. Now, never on Sunday.

I would be interested in a program of education... children are a good place to start, but I wonder how successful we would have been in Canada without those hefty fines posted EVERYWHERE by sign.

[Lambada]

El Faro, the Puerto Plata paper, is talking about cleaning the schools before the children return, but NOT about involving the children.
http://www.periodicoelfaro.com.do/10...dicoortiz.html