We are delighted to share a blog written by Marija Lopez Potulic, a student at Brook Hill International School Belgrade who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2018-19 Global Goals Competition.
Their project is among over 800 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community.
We loved our experience while planning and completing our project, but we can all definitely do more for our planet.
Project Overview
As a team, we have decided to choose the idea of influencing our neighborhood to reduce the amount of plastic used. We have mostly specified in reducing the number of plastic straws used. A few weeks ago, we have placed some new trash bins for the students to start recycling. We had successfully influenced the majority of students and we were actually surprised by the results.
We had also made a questionnaire for the students to complete, and once again we were surprised. We have gotten our idea from various sources. We have seen animals die from plastic straws so this is the reason why we chose this. All of this experience has taught us to be more mindful of the plants and animals that live around us. We should not take their lives away for our comfort. They deserve to have a nice life and live while they still have time.
Our Journey
After some research, we have found out that it takes a lot of time for a plastic straw to decompose. They mostly end up in oceans and can kill animals. Since plastic straws were not the only point of our project we decided to start to reduce the number of plastic cups that are used inside the school by the students.
By some research from our year 6 students (from some project of theirs), we found out that more primary students bring their own reusable water bottle. After giving the secondary students our questionnaire about recycling we found out that more and more students have started to bring their own reusable water bottles. We found this exciting because it meant that our ideas were successful. We liked these results so we decided to do more.
The Next Chapter
Ever since we started this project, we had influenced a good amount of people to reduce the amount of plastic that they use. Since the opening of our school every year there has been a school charity bazaar. This year we are proud to announce that the next bazaar will be taking place on the 25th of May 2019. We have had a few ideas for the bazaar and have decided to have our own stand in the bazaar.
Inside the stand, we will have a presentation to the students and parents about the dangers of plastic and about what we can do to reduce it. We will later host some minigames for the children to have some fun. During the bazaar, we will be able to earn some money. With the money earned, we will buy metal or glass straws and donate them. We are now very proud of our achievements, and we hope to successfully complete even more of our goals.
The 2018-19 GSL Global Goals Competition is now open and runs until June 2019. If you belong to one of the 700+ teams of students currently delivering a social action project as part of the competition we would love to hear from you and feature your blog and project photos on our website to inspire others.
