SustyVibes Street Conference is an annual event by SustyVibes which takes place in selected locations across the country. This year, the Street Conference in Lagos was taken to Oshodi Market, Oshodi and Oja Oba Market, Abule Egba in Lagos.
The Susty Street conferences are organised in commemoration of world clean up day, a global event which holds across 190 countries, in a bid to build a more sustainable world for all and enable the environment to heal from the adverse effects of the indiscriminate disposal of waste items.
EVENT ACTIVITIES
When we gathered at both locations for the Lagos street conference, we began with introductory remarks by team leads in both location, who charged the volunteers and participants to do their best in ensuring that the clean up was a success, reminding everyone of the need and goals of the street conference and what we are working to ensure. Next we had the safety kits and cleaning materials distributed to the volunteers and partners at the locations.
The teams in Lagos was divided into 3 groups, one group in charge of the gathering and sorting of waste materials from around the marketplace, the second group in charge of advocacy and the went around enlightening people on the need to have a clean and well preserved environment, the health and social benefits of that and the duty of everyone in ensuring that such is maintained. The third group were the intervibes group and they conducted interviews with volunteers, partners and people in the streets, discussing their experiences with waste management and plans to keep up a clean environment.
GOALS OF THE STREET CONFERENCE
1. To create awareness on recycling of plastic.
2. To urge the Market women to dispose of their waste in bins and segregate their waste.
3. To proffer sustainable solutions on waste management to the Market women .
4.To let people know the dangers of improper waste disposal.
5. To enlighten people about climate change, its causes and its effects on human life.
PARTNERS AND VOLUNTEERS
To ensure a sucessful Lagos street conference we partnered with several governmental and private and organizations; Alon Green Recycling, Wecyclers, United Ways Greater Nigeria (U.G.W.N.), LAWMA, FBRA, Ecochampions, Lagos State Ministry Of Environment, Oshodi Isolo L.G.A. and Future Savers.
We had a total of 100 Volunteers present at the Lagos Street conference all of whom worked together to ensure that all the locations were properly cleaned up and the market people well enlightened on the need for a clean environment
IMPACT
The clean up lasted for 2hour and we gathered a total of 205kg waste in total and volunteers in the advocacy team were able to reach a large number of people in the markets
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Creation of more awareness in the need to recycle plastics
- Local Government and community should take up the sensitization campaign at intervals within the communities to ensure participation