"Dear colleagues, partners and friends,
You are all cordially invited to participate in our InternationalVolunteer Day 2008 activities, which will take place Friday 5thDecember. We need a lot of volunteers, and UN staff and staff fromsponsor organizations are especially encouraged to sign up. RedCrescent is our main implementing partner, and is organizing themobilization of volunteers in Damascus (call the Red Crescent andregister yourself).
This year a number of UN agencies and NGOs in Syria are promoting volunteerism for environmental awareness (MDG 7) through organizing anEnvironmental Campaign focusing on canvas bags as an alternative toplastic bags. The campaign is taking place in Lattakia and Damascus, incl.UNRWA Yarmouk camp.
In each city, we are going to clean up selected areas for plastic andother waste, distribute canvas bags, flyers and booklets to raiseenvironmental awareness, and organize children to paint their owncanvas bag within the concept of "Learning How To Play". NGOs will also be invited to display their activities to the children andvisitors. We are mobilizing 500 volunteer and 500 children in each city + 150 children in Yarmouk camp.
Please see the IVD campaign spots and program for the Damascus event below:
Activity: Clean-up of plastic and other waste
Location:Selected areas of Damascus
Time: 8.30
Pick up at al-Fayha by busses11.00 Cleaning finishes.
Breakfast at al-Fayha for the volunteers, Children painting their own canvas bag Environmental awareness raising to childrenAl-Fayha
10.30 Official Opening of IVD for partner organizations and sponsors
12-18.00 Children are invited to participate in activities organizedby the volunteers and NGOs19.00 Celebration reception for the volunteers onlyDistribution of canvas bagsEnvironmental awareness through flyers, booklets and documentation showCham City Center + Grandmart supermarket
13.00 Distribute canvas bags in the Supermarket, and raiseenvironmental awareness from IVD stand
16.00 Shops open. Distribute flyers and booklets on all floors of theCity Center.
Even if you don't sign up to become a volunteer, you are most welcometo visit our activities on the day. Canvas bags are distributed forfree in the supermarket to customers.
In the name of the Volunteer Spirit and hopes for a great event,
Signe Ejerskov (Ms.)
UNV Programme Officer
UNDP Syria
Visit us online: http://www.undp.org.sy/, http://www.un.org.sy/, http://www.unvolunteers.org/
Tel.:+963 11 612 98 11 (ext. 293)
Fax: +963 11 611 45 41 "
you can see the poster(Arabic) here, I couldnt upload it to blogspot, if you need English posters please send me an e-mail cause the posters are too big to download.
See you guys there, bring friends and cameras!
Be there or be square ;)
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4 comments:
لدينا نقص حاد بما يخص العمل التطوعي.. ماهيّته و سبله...
قد أكون مخطئا لكنني أعتقد أن العمل التطوعي "ككم و ليس كنوع" في سوريا محصور تقريبا إما بالجمعيات الاسلامية أو ببعض الجمعيات المخملية على طراز باشوات مصر ما قبل الثورة...
و لا أعتقد ان الدولة تساعد على تقوية العمل التطوعي و نشره بين الشباب.. لا أعلم...
تحية و عذرا للكتابة بالعربية
You are right dear Syriangavroche, actually I wrote a post about it few months ago, as a full time volunteer I got a closer look to many Syrian NGOs, and realized how bad the current situation is… you can read here:
http://myfog-dania.blogspot.com/2008/07/concept-of-volunteering-in-syrian-ngos.html
But still, the good news is there are thousands of young people who are ready to give many hours out of their week to participate in a volunteering work, those youth are lack of supportive volunteering culture (NGO's and GO'S), and at the same time lack of imitative spirit due to the first reason I've mentioned.
I know those activities, events like the IVD are not considered sustainable, but still it could encourage the spirit of volunteering among people and spread enthusiasm and sense of responsibility among volunteers and any one who happened to be around.
And please you are free to write in any language you want, but try not to use Spanish cause I know nothing except for greeting phrases ;)
It is great to see this taking place in Syria.
Another problem is plastic bottles.
Big companies like Coke, and Nestle,... are going big time into the bottled water industry, they found a new Gold mine. They buy clean water resources like massive Springs in Laten America for example, and sell the clean water which should flow free to the people, sell it with their Logo at the price of Black Gold (Oil). The result is poor people have limited access to free clean water, rich people are polluting the environment with these plastic bottles, and
Recently there are reports that the chemicals in these plastic bottles cause a lot of health problems, even death for Chinese children.
Cigarettes is another source of garbage you see on the floor of every Syrian street, not to say anything about every Syrian lung, and every last cubic meter of fresh air left in Damascus.
It would be nice if some one take pictures of the location which will be cleaning "Before and After", so people know what they are missing.
Salam, the water issue is a big big unspoken problem... I always wonder why people never pay attention to the amount of pollution they bring by buying those bottles daily... when we did clean-up campaigns before in Damascus, plastic bottles and plastic paper we found were melted under the sun, can you imagine the damages these stuff are doing to the environment and the well being of people and animals!
Coca-cola is well known of stealing pure water and polluting drinkable water in poor areas (like in India) and these types of violation to vital life is hidden and no one speaks about.
I will try to get the before and after photos and post'em here
cheers Salam ;)
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