The Little Prince – Cleaning Jerusalem Together

On Sunday morning, Daniella crawled out from under her blanket,

Brushed her teeth, put on a mask,

Left her house to go to school, and suddenly saw

That a dog had done his business. Everyone crowded around, all in a huff,

Only Daniella didn’t understand all the fuss

“Why don’t you just register a complaint in the 106 app”?

(It reads like a children’s rhyme in Hebrew, below.)

The 106 hotline in a children’s rhyme

One of the huge accomplishments of the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together (and the blog category about it is here) is that it has put clean streets at the top of the Jerusalem Municipality’s agenda. As such, it was only natural that the day to celebrate the work of the 106 Municipal Hotline – held appropriately on 10.6, the tenth of June – be produced in collaboration with activists from the Little Prince. Designed and planned online (coronavirus restrictions prevented any in-person events) It included virtual tours of the 106 Municipal Hotline, plays for children about how to care for their environment and engage the Municipality, the ‘Story of a Garbage Can,’ app competition, trivia games, and more.

Official flyer

Here’s how it started.

Efrat Givaty, one of the leaders of the Little Prince, came up with an idea, which at the time seemed crazy, to create a 106 Appreciation Day. It would be a day of love and responsibility for Jerusalem. A day in which residents would commemorate activism and their ability to influence their environment. A day to look around, to take responsibility, and to be involved so that the city can be a better place for all of us.

We started to dream and began envisioning exhibits of sanitation equipment (garbage can, receptacle, underground can, etc.), alongside a photography exhibit at Safra Square, children riding on garbage trucks with sanitation workers, a huge event in the park, tours of the 106 hotline and more. We brought all these ideas to a meeting at the 106 hotline on March 8, which dealt with a number of issues. When the idea of  106 Appreciation Day came up, they might not have understood exactly what we wanted, but they politely went along, smiling in agreement.

And then came the coronavirus. And like everything, 106 Appreciation Day stopped in its tracks, gone.

As soon as the restrictions were raised in mid-May, contact was made with the 106 hotline and joint work began again.

This was really a joint effort. Betty Testa, the 106 hotline manager, invited residents and professionals from the operations department to think together and work together from the outset. In fact, no planning or preparation was done without the residents. It was truly a joint venture from the start, with ownership of and responsibility taken by all partners.  Throughout the (total of two) weeks in which the work was done to prepare for the day’s events, the brainstorming, decision-making, planning and execution were shared by the different professionals at the hotline and operations department – and the residents. Despite the differences between the employees and residents, there was a sense of one organic team working together and mutually for a common goal, without tensions, without gaps. Really, really, together.

This is one of the great successes of this day – professionals and residents can work together to achieve common goals in the city, each contributing its abilities and skills in a way that leverages and empowers the final product.

Flyer in Arabic

All along, it was clear that the day’s activities would be available to all parts of the city: the ultra-Orthodox, Arab East Jerusalem and Jewish West Jerusalem. Activities were tailored to be culturally, programmatically and linguistically-sensitive, as were all publications.

Flyer for the ultra-Orthodox public

Usually, there are separate publications so that residents in different parts of the city do not really know what is going on in East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, or among the ultra-Orthodox. For 106 Appreciation Day the publications were both integrated and separate, so that anyone could “peek” into what was happening in a different area of the city. The municipal spokesman’s office went along with all our requests and created impressive and high-quality products. Here’s one example of a video they made:

Now, we can’t go back. June 10th, 10.6 as the Israelis write it, has been established as ‘106 Appreciation Day.’ Together we created a framework and content. Now we get to fantasize and dream for next year. Here’s a second video, a behind-the-scenes look at the 106 hotline:

Like many headlines around the world, most of the main headlines in Israel these days relate to COVID-19 – sickness rates, healing rates, policy updates, efforts to cure and prevent.

But what else interests Jerusalemites, especially at a time when everyone is at home? Garbage. And, despite it all, garbage – and cleaning it up – is still making news in Jerusalem.

Two articles were recently published in the local Hebrew press, in Jerusalem’s Kol Ha’Ir newspaper. One (here’s the link to the Hebrew article) was about the Jerusalem Municipality cleaning up Public Private Spaces before the Passover holiday (you can read here about the Municipality’s decision to be responsible for their cleaning):

Screen shot of Kol Ha’Ir article, April 9

And the other is about the significant increase in home trash as a result of lockdown and shelter in place regulations. Here’s the link to that Hebrew article.

Screen shot of second Kol Ha’Ir article, April 11

Thanks to the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together for putting cleaning up Jerusalem on the public agenda, where it has stayed, despite the COVID-19 crisis.

And thank you to the Jerusalem Foundation and to the Rayne Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.

The Little Prince is at it again. This time, on Olswanger Street in Kiryat Hayovel.

In February 2019 the Little Prince began a project called “Clean Olswanger St.”

Olswanger Street, finally being cleaned up

They posted on Facebook about how much trash there was on the street, a place where thousands of people live, work and study. (In addition to residents, there’s an elementary and junior high school and six kindergartens on that street.) We developed relationships with local sanitation workers, the municipal enforcement workers (those who give fines for littering, etc.) and landscaping department. We recruited residents, created plans, met, talked, and…… nothing happened – there was not yet enough passion and responsibility at the residents’ side to be a part of the solution. Very frustrating.

Before. This is what people had to live with.

A year went by. The Jerusalem Municipality began to implement its clean city reform, according to which the Municipality would take responsibility for cleaning 1,250 acres of private-public spaces (PPS’s – we wrote about them here). Technically, it doesn’t need to, because, technically, these spaces aren’t city property. But they are public property, and it just makes sense. We’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating – thank you to the Municipality as a whole and the different departments involved. This is a groundbreaking move, with Jerusalem being the first municipality in Israel to clean up the PPS. Hopefully, other municipalities will follow suit.

Bags upon bags of garbage

So finally, Olswanger St. is receiving its due. Last week, at the end of February 2020, sanitation crews began cleaning up the garbage that had piled up on the hillsides, on the pathways, between the buildings. Over the first week they cleaned one side of the street and the difference is huge!

Look how many bags the garbage filled!

Let’s hope that this is a turning point for Olswanger Street, for many clean years to come.

After. Hoping for a cleaner future.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to the Rayne Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.

Who’s responsibility is it to clean up those open spaces between apartment buildings? That walkway or set of never-ending staircases that lead from the street to your complex? That vacant lot two doors down? This is an issue that unites all members of the Little Prince network – Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, residents of various ethnicities etc., and the reason we began the Little Prince network two years ago.

Jerusalem, along with many other cities in Israel, has an interesting section of its zoning code called Private-Public Space, or PPS.  These spaces are basically public open spaces – beside apartment buildings, or in common courtyards, or gardens or stairwells to very large complexes. As opposed to property that technically belongs to specific homeowners or apartment complexes, these PPS’ are open for anyone to pass by. But paradoxically, although they are open to the public, the space doesn’t belong to the Municipality, so technically, the Municipality is not responsible for maintaining these spaces. This responsibility is supposed to be the residents. However, many residents are either unaware of this responsibility or are unable to maintain and clean these areas. The result – too many PPS spaces throughout Jerusalem that are overgrown messes strewn with trash.

Cleaning up the Private-Public Space

And this is a widespread problem, that the Municipality has recognized that is must step in to improve. After several decades of neglect, as part of its plan to clean up Jerusalem, the Municipality mapped PPS’ around the city – over 1,125 acres – with plans to help residents clean and maintain these spaces on a regular basis. Cleaning will be carried out at different frequencies according to each PPS. In addition to cleaning, the Sanitation Division will, as far as possible, be responsible for handling lighting and safety hazards and more.

This is a tremendous accomplishment. Private-Public Spaces cover huge areas throughout Jerusalem, and cleaning and maintaining them will make a significant impact on how Jerusalem’s neighborhoods look.

The most exciting part of this news is that in doing so, in taking responsibility for cleaning up the PPS’s, the Jeruslaem Municipality has set a groundbreaking precedent throughout Israel. As we noted above, issues of PPS’s and whose responsibility it is to clean them up permeate Israel, but most of the municipalities keep to their legal responsibilities – public spaces as zoned. Congratulations to the Little Prince for this huge accomplishment, and many thanks to the Operations Division of the Jerusalem Municipality for their partnership.

fianThe Little Prince – Fostering cooperation between city workers, city departments and residents

One example is in old Katamon. This PPS has been the subject of Little Prince activist, and member of the Ginot Ha’Ir Community Council board, Sarah Yacobzada’s attention over the past few months. A few weeks ago, the Municipality finally began to clean up the area. In response Sarah wrote:

Remember the PPS? They finally started cleaning it in old Katamon. It’s important to say a huge thank you for the partnership between Dudi Turgeman, the Director in the Southern District of the Sanitation Department, and Mazal Gorney, who is responsible for landscaping in our area, as well as to Eitan Levy and Jamal who recruited the workers who cleaned up all the neglect from over the years! And our dear friend Gil Gorny who directed everyone, and who managed to drive significant change in cleaning up the city.

Here’s her Facebook post:

Here’s the post from the Ginot Ha’Ir Community Center’s Facebook page (in Hebrew):

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Rayne Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.

It’s been two years in the making (see this post from August 2017 to read about its roots), but the MyCity app is finally here!

You, too, can download MyCity

The idea for the MyCity app was born two years ago, during a #MadeinJLM #HackJLM hackathon event. At the all-night event, activists from the Little Prince, together with a ‘group of techies’ as we called them then, teamed up to sketch out an idea. The breakthrough that night was the understanding that the app must be as simple as possible (the KISS approach).  While other apps, including the Municipality’s, were time-consuming and complicated (requiring a lot of text about location, personal details, a long form, etc.), MyCity was to be as simple as the conventional camera app. You point at the target – a pile of garbage, a garbage can that is overflowing, etc., and click. The app does the rest: it sends the picture to the server with the coordinates, time and the identity of the already registered sender.

It took a while to find the entrepreneurs who would make it work, but now, a beta version of the app is here! One of the important uses of this application is for a series of pictures. You can be walking on the street or in the park and just point-and-click at every point-that-should-be-cleaned. The server can make this series of pictures into one report (“list of problems on X street, or in Y park) that can be sent to the relevant municipality official. Another interesting use is when you pass the same filthy spot on your way to work or school every day, you can take a picture each day. The server is able to create a time-based report, (“Corner of X and Y streets, from October 1 – 31”) which can also be reported to a municipal official, asking for a sustainable systemic response. The Municipality’s app can’t – there you need to file separate reports for each location and time and fill a form before sending. There is no way to understand the context of the report – the other parts of the park or the history of the spot. Even before this novel app was out, you could see Jerusalemite activists creating ‘garbage stories.’ (Want to see examples of successful local ‘Garbage Stories’? See this post about MiniActive’s successes in East Jerusalem.)

Here’s the Facebook (in Hebrew) post from the Little Prince Facebook group:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Rayne Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.

Yet another accomplishment for the Little Prince – Cleaning up Jerusalem Together. This time, one of our leading activists, Ronen Weil, was recognized by the Mayor, in a special prize awarded to local residents and activists who volunteer to improve their immediate surroundings.

Mayor Lion and all prize winners, picture from Municipality Spokesman’s Office

This news was published in both national and local Jerusalemite news sources, here and here, respectively. The official statement praised Ronen, for his:

Extensive contribution to the neighborhood of Homat Shmuel (Har Homa) in the areas of physical infrastructures, transportation and cleaning up the city. Ronen is part of the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together project.

He takes great care in bringing about changes in the neighborhood public sphere that will benefit the residents, while ensuring that all tasks and projects are completed and seen through to fruition.

At the ceremony, Mayor Lion said:

The city of Jerusalem is the only city in the country where almost one in every three residents volunteers, for the betterment of the entire society, for his or her neighborhood, for weakened populations, for animals, and more, and we have that to be proud of. Jerusalem’s unique mix that makes it unique in Israel and the world. Together and apart they are what make Jerusalemites better and more caring people. Thank you, each and every one of you. Because of you we have such a great city.

Thank you, Mayor Lion for those inspiring words. Congratulations Ronen and all of the activists in the Little Prince!

Many thanks to the Rayne Foundation and the Jerusalem Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.

As a result of the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together, in cooperation with local residents and the Jerusalem Municipality, it is now so much more pleasant to throw the garbage in the trash.

Into the mouths of cats

Residents of the Pat neighborhood, who came together to promote neighborhood cleanliness, at first wanted to replace the big (and ugly) garbage receptacles with smaller, more aesthetic bins. Because all the bins are slated to be replaced by underground receptacles in the near future, the Municipality did not approve the residents’ request.

Jerusalem skyline on a garbage receptacle

Serious activists don’t give up, so the residents made another suggestion: Let’s decorate the bins to make it more fun to throw away the garbage! Then we can encourage people to throw garbage into the bin and not leave it on the ground around it. And, together with local artists, bins in the Pat neighborhood look like this:

Your nearby garbage bin, wrapped as a present!

The result: here’s a look at the first bins that have been transformed with adorable graffiti paintings!

Monstors are eating my garbage!

After the success of the first bins, the residents are calling on the rest of Jerusalem to join in and bring color to the public space.

A number of local artists, each wtih different styles

We can definitely call this a garbage revolution!

Here’s a post from the local community center’s Facebook page, where even Mayor Moshe Lion took notice:

Here’s a second post, with pictures of more receptacles:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Rayne Foundation for their support of the Little Prince.