February 2017

Playa Del Carmen, Mxico

Playa del Carmen Clean Up Event

Objective

To inspire our neighbors of Playa del Carmen to keep streets and park clean, contributing
to the sustainable development of the community.

Summary

It does not take long after arriving to Playa del Carmen to realize how much litter is accu-
mulated in streets and parks of the city, for this instance, volunteers, interns, and GVI field
staff took a step to positively impact the scenery of their neighborhood.

Figure 1 Participants of the Cleaning Challenge

Report

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On February the 25th we took the streets of Bosque Real to clean up the neighborhood we
live in. Volunteers, interns, field staff and even the GVI Mexico Sales team joint our collec-
tion of plastic bottles, glass bottles, cans, cigarette cartons, and other assorted rubbish.
We began our adventure at 6:30AM starting by
refining last minute logistics to complete our
philanthropic task. Our Army finally headed
out at 7:00 with gloves, rubbish bags, drinking
water, and the common goal of making a pos-
itive difference in the community we all
share.

Our main target was to clean el Parque de la

Madre and the surrounding streets, we man-
aged to complete the clean up within 2 hours
and 30 minutes. During this time, community
members came up and enquired about what
we were doing and why, as well as simply ex-
tending their thanks. We have even noticed
that after cleaning the park a neighbor placed
a bin at the corner of the park, motivating
park users to properly dispose their litter.

We delegated activities amongst ourselves, so

that some people would be collecting recycla-
bles while the rest were collecting non-recy-
clables. Upon the completion of our task, we
sorted through our 27 bags of litter so that we
Figure 2 Intern and volunteer showing how fun the activity
could dispose/recycle properly.
was

In the last two weeks since we completed this task, we have noticed the reappearance of
rubbish but we still made a huge difference and got a great response from the community.
The fact that our neighbors supported us was heartwarming and showed us that we are not
the only ones concerned about the cleanliness of our park and common streets.
Although it is impossible to change everyones actions overnight, we hope that our efforts
have inspired community members to respect and contribute to keep our neighborhood nice
and clean.

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Figure 3 Cleaning in progress

If you would like to know more about the community projects in Playa del Carmen, please
visit: http://www.gvi.co.uk/location/yucatan/

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