We’ve written here, here, here and here, about how the Little Prince initiative, through the JICC’s mentoring of activists from all parts of the city – Arabs, religious, secular and Haredi Jews – are helping to make Jerusalem a clean city, even during corona times. Over the past 3 years, by helping grassroots leaders to forge intercultural connections with each other and with Municipal professionals and officials on numerous levels we have empowered them to create change on the ground, starting with one of the most basic services – garbage and clean streets. Part of this work is facilitating partnerships with the Jerusalem Municipality and its professional leadership as a way to make work more effective. On October 14, we took one more step to strengthen this partnership.
This was the quarterly meeting with the Director of the Operations Department. The meeting included a number of division directors: Eitan Levy, Director of the Beautification Department; Ilan Sasson, Director of the Municipal Supervision and Policing Division, and Gili Gorni, Director of the Sanitation Division; ), a number of quarter supervisors and unit directors, together with the residents and activists. In the meeting, all participants were treated with respect and all claims and arguments were taken seriously. This meeting was another example of the importance of working together, where each of the partners brings their own piece to the puzzle, creating a beautiful, varied picture.
Much of what we do is putting the puzzle pieces together – together
This feeling was strengthened when Itzik Nidam gave his presentation, which showed the significant progress that was done as part of the Jerusalem Municipality’s cleaning reform:
- Street sweeping reform: 600 new cleaning personnel were hired.
- Sanitation Division responds to residents’ queries until 22:00 at night!
- 50 new and sophisticated street cleaning vehicles have been introduced, enabling a high degree of street cleaning.
- Regular collection days for old cars and scrap metal, as well as pruned branches and leaves in each neighborhood.
- Cleaning of 1,250 acres of open private spaces. These spaces are technically the residents’ responsibility to clean, but de facto are public eyesores. Over the past year the Municipality took responsibility for many of them (You can read more about that here.), and as a result, thus far 10 tons of garbage (!) were added to the regular garbage collection in the city.
- Placement of 3 huge compactors in the downtown area for the use of business owners and residents.
- Replacing garbage bins with underground bins, and upgrading existing underground bins to new models that have bigger openings and a larger capacity.
- Investing in educational and social activities in schools, kindergartens and community centers to advance clean city principles, when possible in light of COVID-19 restrictions.
- Reinforcement of cleaning in gardens and playgrounds.
- Establishment of residents’ forums in the neighborhoods that work together with the neighborhood professionals.
- And much more….
After the presentation we had a long discussion in which residents responded to the issues presented, brought up additional needs and issues that require continued focus and effort. We thought together about ways to deal with vandalism, supervising residents and more and came up with ideas for implementation.
And yes, all this cooperation took via Zoom.
We have been introduced to many desirable changes that affect how the city looks and our quality of life, which brings us closer to our original goal – to make Jerusalem a clean city. What fun it is to work with our partners from Operations Division, who invest so much in turning Jerusalem into the cleanest city in Israel.
Here’s the link from the original Facebook post in Hebrew:
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for its continued support of the Little Prince!
