Volunteers and Local Community organize #Trashtag Challenge
This week, the Trashtag Challenge Campaign takes place at the local area in Kathmandu called Pepsicola. It is named Pepsicola because the local Pepsicola factory is located here. The Trashtag Challenge is a trending global cleanup movement with people posting before and after pictures of areas they’ve cleaned up. This way they are challenging each other all over the world for a better, cleaner planet. The Trashtag Challenge is now popular all over the world!
The 3R Principle
For this challenge we use the principle of 3R: Recycle, Reuse and Reduce. The VSN team, Career Building International Academy (CBIA), Sinamangal Urban Service Society (SUSS), the Women center and also the local community gather in groups and go through the area to pick up trash. During three days they clean up the area around the Volunteer Society Nepal office and the CBIA school. We have organized all the trash in different types of labeled bags: Paper, Plastic, Glass and Other.
How did it start?
Linda, our talented member, partnership and social media manager of Volunteer Society Nepal, informed in the VSN group chat about the Trashtag Challenge. From this, our energetic volunteer Laura Goldberg picked up the topic and started the program. Meanwhile the whole team of VSN Staff and volunteers supported her. She organized the program in a very attractive way so that people can get involved with their full heart. Laura and the coordinator of CBIA conducted a meeting on the trash challenge before starting the campaign.
Goal of the Trashtag Challenge
- Providing knowledge on how the waste of the streets gets into sewage, river and the air, back to the people
- Creating awareness of how pollution harms living beings
- Creating awareness on how plastics does not decay: it takes more than 400 years to get decayed. So to try and not use plastics as much as possible or throw away carelessly
- Educate people to keep the surroundings clean
Upcycling
The students of CBIA are encouraged to make art and crafts by recycling and reusing the materials. This is called ‘Upcycling’. On the 4th of April the students are asked what they learned from the trash tag challenge and what they think about the cleaning the area, the reflecting and raising awareness. Finally, there will be challenges on 5th April among the most creative groups. The winners will get prizes and all the participants are provided with certificates.
Volunteer Vacancy: Climate Ambassadors
We are looking for volunteers who want to set up educational programs at the schools on the subjects of Climate Change, Trash and raise awareness on these issues. If you like to join us, please apply here.
