miércoles, 31 de agosto de 2011

Recycling Project - Pushing Along

All four of the schools I've chosen to start working with on recycling have started receiving recyclables.  I was taking a tour of the University of Costa Rica when I got a phone call from a student asking me about some details of the program.  I was confused at first and learned that the final school had started receiving without even letting me know.  I literally jumped up and down in the middle of the campus because they had taken the initiative without me.  I mean I had already done workshops with all of their students and some community members but it's still so impressive!  

Yesterday I attended a personnel meeting the school had.  The director had invited me to, well I wasn't quite sure but went anyways.  I thought I would have about ten minutes and it turned into over an hour of talking about recycling with the teachers.  We discussed all of the ins and outs of the program and we learned more about the county working on starting a recycling program.  Everyone asked me questions and the one who has recycled for a couple years added some amazing insight on building a recycling culture here.  It was inspiring.  

Then, Don Victor brought in a box full of tetrabrik milk cartons all clean and flattened.  He was concerned that community members weren't bringing the materials in the same manner and showed us one mom's handy work with this beautiful box.  It was hilarious as all of the teachers and I marveled at the 60+ milk cartons that fit into this tiny box.  Next, he showed me the recycling they have already received and we decided I would head back on Friday to work with the sixth graders on organizing it all.  This is one way to get the word out to the community to bring stuff in already flattened.  Two teachers offered to work with me so that we can figure out the quirks of the organizing process.  

This school doesn't have recycling bins yet and we're figuring out how to work around that.  I got to thinking yesterday.  It would be so much easier if I just had a ton of funds easily at my disposal and a car that I could buy and pick up these bins for each of the schools.  But realized yesterday that the director delegating a job to one of the teachers to stay in contact with the person donating them and working with him to get them to the school gives this teacher ownership of the program.  The same for the teachers working with me this Friday.  Some even had great ideas for making props with the students for Independence Day out of recyclable materials!  We worked together for about 90 minutes on how to get word out to the community that recycling is here and how best to do it.  Just like the playground in my town that's never used.  If you don't actively involve the town in a program it won't succeed.  But of course I've had to have a ton of patience for word to get around about this program!  But it is, and I couldn't be happier.

Not only was it beautiful out, and I've had a great few weeks but I just left so inspired by all of the progress they had made on their own and was so thankful for the chance to finally brainstorm with the teachers.  I headed into Acosta to run some errands, sat in the park arranging some stuff for other projects and life and caught the bus to the school I work at on Tuesdays.  I got a chance to work with the afternoon students which is rare and we had an amazing time reading Dr. Seuss.  It feels like fall here and I couldn't feel giddier.

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario