At the JICC, it is our mission to ensure that residents from all Jerusalem communities are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to effect change, on a local and larger level. The Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together seeks to do this, focusing on cleaning up Jerusalem. This past week we had two such opportunities – and we raised public awareness along the way.
The Jerusalem Garbage Commando
Last Friday (October 26) we held the first of a series of ‘expert training’ meetings, which aim to engage residents to become a part of the Garbage Commando. Gilo resident and the official record-holder for reports to the 106 municipal hotline (where you report excess garbage and other hazards), Dan Krakow, explained the ins and outs of reporting hazards, whom to turn to in the Municipality, and more. This was the first such meeting, and we intend for there to be many more. The meeting was covered in the local Hebrew Jerusalem newspaper, Yediot Yerushalayim (article above).
Little Prince activists not only made news locally – they were also in national news. The article pictured below, “Rich Trash, Poor Trash,” (see here for the article in Hebrew) which was published on the national news web site YNet, describes the gap in response time between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods after trash and other hazards are reported. In [the well-to-do] neighborhood of Ramot, hazards were cleared away only 1 /2 hour after being reported,” notes the article. “While in the [less well-to-do] neighborhood of Nahlaot…reports from October 9th had still not been handled.”
What’s for sure is that Little Prince’s activists, from all sectors and all groups in Jerusalem, will keep on the watch to make Jerusalem a clean city.
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its support of our effective activism efforts and to the Rayne Foundation for its support the Little Prince initiative!
