Clarendon residents clear beach of garbage

SALT RIVER, Clarendon:

Residents from several communities in Clarendon last Saturday took to the beaches as they volunteered their services on International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Longville Park residents, accommodated by eight other groups which included 4-H Training Centre, Allied Health Care Institute, Foga Road High, and Heart Trust Ebony Park, all gathered at the rapidly deteriorating Welcome Beach in Salt River.

With the beach water pushing closer to the mangroves, fishermen have already forsaken it.

That did not make the clean-up less of a challenge for the almost 100 volunteers who cleared the shore of garbage.

Ralston Peters, project manager for Longville Park Citizens' Association, told Rural Xpress that this is the 10th year they have been making the trek to the area.

Department manager of Ebony Park, Sasha Shim Hu, said it's their fifth year participating in the beach clean-up and she hopes the lesson she wants to impart is embraced.

"We keep doing it because we want to play our role in environment control. We want to teach students the importance of volunteering and giving back to the society that you want to see properly maintained," she said, adding that the project is also a mean of enforcing one of their core values - teamwork.

Regarding the wider society, Shim Hu said Jamaicans need to wake up and take notice, as the only way they will be able to enjoy the beauty of the country is by changing their behaviour today.

"We can't change the past, but we can do something about the future. We can start today by maintaining the beaches, the reefs, the drains and our backyards," she said.

Stressing that it will take a collective effort, she issued the warning that the beauty that attracts tourists to the country will be a thing of the past if persons do not accept that everyone has a part to play.

rural@gleanerjm.com