NGC Eco Phoenix Club

In 2022, the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) to the Stockholm Convention held its 18th annual meeting during which it agreed to recommend listing the chemical compound UV-328 under Annex A for global elimination of all production and use.

The automotive industry in Europe has already begun to phase out the compound due to its harmful effects. Learn more about POPs and their harmful effects from our website www.bcrc-caribbean.org

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Happy National Wildlife Day!

A school of scalloped hammerhead sharks swim in a blue ocean off the coast of Cocos Island in this image from our archives.

Do you have an old mobile phone that is gathering dust at home? Check every drawer and shelf, bring them to our bins, we can help. We are collecting them to prevent pollution and we invite you to be a part of this solution.

Join the BCRC-Caribbean and other project partners on our mission to prevent 10,000 used mobile phones from going to local landfills. Be a part of the change, recycle your old mobile phones!

Happy World Environment Day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CIPLOajR58

Check out this free sustainability webinar!

Join us on Friday February 25th at 10am for our first sustainability webinar of 2022, hosted by the Tobago Tourism Agency Limited in collaboration with our partners at Green T&T! 🌿

"The benefits of Tobago's Man and the Biosphere designation to your tourism business" will explore the opportunities for tourism development in light of destination Tobago's green accolades and programs, and expand on the economic, environmental and social benefits to Tobagonians.

Our featured presenter will be Mr. Aljoscha Wothke, CEO of ERIC - Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville, Tobago, who was pivotal in the process of getting North-East Tobago designated a Man and the Biosphere Site.

➡️ Join us on Zoom next Friday using the following link: https://bit.ly/3Brk99p

➡️ Find out more about Tobago's Unesco Man and the Biosphere designation at https://en.unesco.org/news/north-east-tobago-declared-unesco-biosphere-reserve

Protect. Restore. Fund. What you do counts.

Video: "Nature Now" with Greta Thunberg In a new short film, activist Greta Thunberg calls for protecting, restoring and funding a critical solution to the climate crisis.

Green Innovators in Action! 🙌❤

to young Kibera Artpreneurs

__Green in action

This week as young people in Glasgow, London, Sydney, Paris, and many other places are marching in the streets demanding urgent action to protect Planet Earth, I read about a young Kenyan entrepreneur who with some of his friends has tried to tackle both pollution and poverty (including their own) in the Kibera slums near Nairobi.

to Wyclife, and his two friends Saviour and Wycliff, who as teenagers a few years ago shared a love of art but faced not a few challenges… including no money and lots of nearby trash polluting their neighborhood.

Their was to recycle rubbish like old beer cans, and transform it into metal artwork to sell to make money for themselves and families. Thus was born the Sun Valley Art Collective, a project they founded that's now expanded to teach art skills to other youth living in Kibera's slums.

I don’t know Wyclife myself, or the details of all involved, but take a look at some of their artwork made from recycled trash in this small project. It's amazing! https://www.facebook.com/artsunvalley

A co-founder of this project, Wyclife is a burn survivor who was trapped in a fire in his Kibera home the night before his second birthday. [His name was to be Wyclef, he wrote, but the magistrate misspelled it on his birth certificate].

Over the next seven years, he had to have 17 operations to treat the burn scars. Now I understand he’s at university studying I.T. and working to support his education with his art.

I read that over the years, this young entrepreneur has been bullied a lot, and called names because of his scars.

Have you ever heard the expression: “There but by the grace of God go I” ?

Fires like this in high density places are a huge problem across Africa as most of you know. And many many people do not come out alive. The poverty that often leads to this dangerous situation is a whole other discussion.

While I believe all of you on the platform know this, I want to say it clearly: There's NEVER an excuse to bully anyone, of any age, from anywhere, for any reason. Whether in person or online.

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Wyclife had an older cousin who helped him cope with the situation: He helped him stand up to bullies, taught him to walk with his injuries, and also to believe in himself. When this cousin sadly passed away, young Wyclife had to deal with bullying on his own. I imagine this was very tough.

If this young man has the courage and vision to amidst quite a few challenges, surely you can too.

Be the person who tries to help those being bullied, and who gives support. And also be the who not just picks up the trash, but imagines its opportunities for you as an entrepreneur.

Whatever you do, don’t be part of the !

Photo credit:

Co-founding social artpreneurs: Wyclife Oluoch (.i.k.i.d.e), Saviour Juma (ceo_artsunvalley) and Wycliff Okoth ()