WILLEMSTAD - The participating organizations AGPNA (Asosiashon di Guia PNA), AJJC (Ambulatory Judicial Youth Care), Athletics Association Trupial, JJIC (Judicial Juvenile Institution Curaçao) and Scouting Antiano and which also form part of the committee Bring Your Own Bag, received last Monday from the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Steven Croes and Minister of Justice Quincy Girigorie water bottles as part of the UNESCO Caribbean Youth for Climate Change project BRING YOUR OWN BAG (Trese Bo Tas).
Both Ministers on this occassion stressed the importance of teaching children at a young age about the importance of climate change and the environment and the important role they also have in this.
The Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB)/Trese Bo Tas (TBT) campaign is a social education initiative geared toward encouraging single-use plastic rejection among the population, specifically geared toward the youth. This project is in view of UNESCO’s project Caribbean Youth for Climate Change. The campaign will encourage citizens to consider alternatives, specifically bringing their own reusable bag along with them when shopping or doing errands. Moreover, the TBT project will also seek to encourage capacity building among young people in areas which are adversely affected by improper waste disposal and the accumulation of plastic. The project seeks to provide mentorship and entrepreneurial skills to the youth of Curaçao so that they may earn an income and build their areas through plastic repurposing and recycling. Curaçao became the second country in the Caribbean, after Jamaica, to launch this UNESCO project.
The project is divided into two phases. Phase One encompassed the social education campaign geared at raising awareness about the effects of single-use plastic on the environment and encouraging the youth of Curaçao to bring their own bags. The social campaign included a launch event in 2019 and community activations, and also the use of social media, print & media ads. During the lockdown the project went digital Bring Your Own Bag in Digital Movement and the youth received tasks to comply. This assignment phase we called 2.1 and it consisted of introducing 4 assignments with 3 different tasks so the youth could also be busy with Trese Bo Tas at home with recycled materials during the lockdown. The 4 materials are plastic bottles, paper and newspaper, cardboard and finally wood. Every 2 weeks we sent the assignment to the organizations with the chosen material and 3 tasks: research, word art to create a poem, haiku and/or a quote of the material and to make an artwork with the material. We created a Trese Bo Tas Face Book page which was used to post and share all the results of the youth with their artwork. Phase two began in 2020 and will end in June of 2021. It is the intention that the organizations continue with the project so that it becomes sustainable.
Thus this project’s objectives are to encourage plastic rejection and repurposing (in particular single use plastic) in our youth organizations. Also, to educate young persons on the real effects of plastic accumulation, improve plastic collection and waste disposal in areas vulnerable to improper waste disposal and its subsequent effects, and finally to provide young people with skills in revenue generating opportunities from recycling and waste.
