THE community of Jericho 2, west Kola Ridge, Honiara, held a waste management awareness programme on Saturday, June 12.
The awareness was led by the Hawks Consultancy and Sirubai Voko Tribe Association, from 4pm – 9pm.
A total of 102 participants attended the programme consisting of 32 women, 28 men and 52 children.
The activity was supported by small grant program under Globalgreen Grant with specific focus on empowering organised communities involved in environmental justice, climate change, food security and biodiversity.
Jericho 2 was fortunate to be a recipient of this small grant with a focus on environmental justice in relation to waste management.
This is one of the pressing issue for urban communities especially in settlements where there is no road service to install or access Honiara City Council rubbish bins.
However, through this small grant project, the community managed to install its own public bins and hoping to get access to road so that rubbish can be disposed of at the right place.
Mr Collin and Mr Kenneth Vuki were invited by the committee to implement an awareness activity under this project based on waste management, and sharing practical example from similar community groups.
The women and girls from the community expressed their gratitude to the facilitators for sharing example from Plastic-wise Gizo which shows that plastic and ropes can be turned into economic items by making handcrafts.
The chairman of J2CDT Mr Steven Bunabo acknowledged the knowledge and experience shared by the facilitators which empowers community members to explore new creative and innovative ideas to utilise waste materials such as plastic, ropes and tins into something productive.
Joe Atoa highlighted that the community have learnt about new knowledge on waste management and how it can lead to a healthy environment and healthy living in regards to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ of different wastes such as plastic and ropes.
A committee member, Mr Rex Oiramo highlighted that the community members are excited about the community engagement and the initiative that continues to progress from one stage to another. He added that a lot of new knowledge has been added to our people through awareness and participation of members in the current waste management activities that was funded by Globalgreen Grant.
The community hopes to get the remaining activity done and will officially launch the newly formed association together with the current waste management project. The committee will send invitation to relevant stakeholders and donors to witness the community initiative later this year.
By Henry Kaniki
