The conveners of the Cleanup Oyo campaign, recently in Ibadan, hosted some secondary school students and their teachers with the aim of educating them on the need to keep their school and the environment clean.
The cleanup Oyo campaign is a subset of the Cleanup Nigeria campaign, supported by the US Mission in Nigeria. Asides Oyo state, the campaign is being held in Lagos, Enugu and Rivers.
The theme of the Cleanup Oyo art contest and environmental management training was: ‘Training the trainers for schools’, and it was supported by YALI, Epower.ng, African Creative Hub, and Recycla.
Olugbenga Ogunbowale, the chief convener of the programme, while giving his opening remarks, stated that the essence of the event was to encourage and inspire young people to be ambassadors of a cleaner city and environment.
He expressed confidence that the good people of Oyo state can make the state clean and also change the perception of Ibadan being a dirty city. He stressed that the fact that someone lives in a dirty environment does not mean that that person has to be of that dirty environment, adding that it is everybody’s responsibility to keep his environment clean at all times.
“Some of the wastes we indiscriminately throw away block waterways and cause flooding. They also cause health and environmental problems,” Ogunbowale said. “If you are neat, and you keep your environment neat, you can inspire your mates to be neat. The cleaner city and environment we are looking for begins with you.”
Jumoke Olowookere, the founder of African Creative Hub, stressed on how to use waste creatively. She added that with reducing, reusing, refusing, repairing, recycling, and upcycling waste, we can build a sustainable world without waste.
She lamented that Nigeria operates a linear economy than a circular economy, especially when it comes to waste management. She emphasised that it was time some of the companies that produce plastic bottles and nylons took responsibility for the products they produce by educating the people on the benefits of recycling or reusing some of their products.
“Plants and animals do not generate wastes that are harmful to us or to the environment. We humans are the ones generating harmful wastes,” Olowookere said. “Waste is not waste until you waste it. The reason we are not creatively using waste is because we don’t know what to do with it.”
The schools that attended the event were Abadina College, inside the University of Ibadan; Immanuel Grammar School, beside the University of Ibadan; and Methodist Grammar School, Bodija, Ibadan.
The event featured a spelling bee. The words that were called out to the students to spell had to do with the environment. There was also an art contest among the schools present. Three finalists were asked to depict pictorially, a clean and green environment.
Ani Rhoda of Abadina College drew a house, which she described as beautiful and clean. “I drew a boy and a girl cleaning the environment because I love a clean house,” she said.
Odion Yusuf of Methodist Grammar School drew a green and clean environment with waste bins beside a house. “The drawing teaches us to put wastes in the bins, and not to throw them away anyhow,” he said.
Emmanuel Olukunle of Immanuel Grammar School drew attention to environmental sanitation. “My drawing shows people cleaning the environment in order to avoid sickness and flooding,” he said.
Odion Yusuf of Methodist Grammar School won the drawing contest with a cash prize of N50,000; Emmanuel Olukunle of Immanuel Grammar School came second with a cash prize of N30,000; and Ani Rhoda of Abadina College came third with a cash prize of N20,000.
The three finalists were also given awards recognising their creative talent, in addition to the cash prizes.
The schools at the event were also given bamboo brooms, rakes, waste bins, and plastic baskets as gift items with which they will use to keep their school environments clean.
Temitope Ishola, the founder of Recycla, reminded the students that the essence of their presence at the event was for them to be anchors of change.
“When you go back to your schools, we want you to be worthy ambassadors of cleaner environment, to share and spread this message to your friends and colleagues,” Ishola said. “If we start now to keep our schools and environment clean, it will soon become a cultural behaviour for us.”
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