A huge community litter picking and clean-up effort in the west end of Newcastle took place as local communities, led by young people form the area, showed community spirit and real pride in their neighbourhood, by working together to remove litter from a green area near to Canning Street School.
All the equipment that was needed by the volunteers was provided by the Triangular Project and other organisers, and the many volunteers were soon getting stuck in, inspired by the slogan, ‘small action, big difference’.
Refreshments and snacks were also made available as people came together for a cleaner, greener community.
Musa Hassan Ali
I asked one of the participants of the clean-up Musa Hassan Ali from the Newcastle Rwandan community for his thoughts about this public-spirited work:
Who is organising the cleanup?
The Roma group is organising the clean-up in coordination with the Kurdish community and the Diwan project from the Sudanese community and Rwandan community all through the Triangular project.
What is the aim of the clean-up?
With the climate change and the environment which we live in we want to come and clean where we are living and want the place to be clean and green and respectable.
It is showing care for the neighbourhood. Indeed it is showing care for the neighbourhood and the city.
Will this clean-up be the first of many?
Second of many we want to do and we identified areas that need some care.
What about education for people?
If it is tidied up it should help people to realise it should stay clean. The Kurdish community do good work here and others have joined up. The initiative needs to be promoted seriously and people are coming out of their homes and joining in
It is really good initiative…it brings people together and improves the environment.
Every first Saturday of the month we encourage communities to clean up their area and then we work together as well.
A community coming together to improve the environment
This was a really positive event to see and it shows the true character of so many of those living in different communities in the west end of Newcastle.
It is clear that they care very much about their neighbourhood and their city of Newcastle. It was also good to see that it was being led by young people, and that they have such a strong respect for the natural environment.
It is also great to see people coming together as one community to fix and environmental problem. Caring for the environment is something that people from all backgrounds can relate to and find important.
Indeed, it seems that one of the best ways to bring communities together and stop some of the toxic divisiveness around at the moment is for people to be helped to come together and improve their environment.
There was something very caring and hopeful about this event and it shows that communities can come together for the mutual benefit of all.
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