The Green Book'18

Every day, we will post one of our 2018 Green Achievements beginning with a word from our Founder/Executive Director, @mr-greens

@mr-greens 2018 Annual Report Message

2018 has come and gone and it’s worth celebrating that we are still here and have another opportunity to make a change and build a more thriving, just and sustainable planet.

The Greens’ 2018 challenges were enormous, with the most back-breaking challenge being the current socio-political crisis plaguing the English Speaking Regions (North West and South West Regions) of Cameroon, where we are headquartered. This crisis has seen us lose more than 5 months of working days as “Ghost towns” and have left us with heavy economic, humanitarian and environmental losses. We are at the verge of a financial collapse if the crisis persists: If we must thrive, then we will need every little support we can get from any corner around the globe.

In as much as our challenges were enormous, our accomplishments were gigantic. We recorded new partnerships, innovated new products, engaged more young people in our activities, started blogging for income, trained more persons and recorded a lot of memorable environmental impacts.

Permit me walk you down the 2018 memory lane of great green achievements.

It started with our strategic retreat and then our 1 hour weekly environmental radio program, Green Radio on Abakwa FM 99.0 that holds every Saturday from 10:00 – 11:00AM. So far, we were able to have 31 editions of our radio program as well as preached our Green Gospel in 9 environmental programs with CRTV and Radio Hot Cocoa.

We joined the rest of the international community to commemorate International Environmental Days such as Earth Day, World Water Day, World Environment Day, etc.

We educated more than 10,000 people in churches and communities about Plastic Pollution, enrolled 20 young persons into our Earth Rangers Corps: Together, we creatively transformed 5322 plastic bottles into UPB Vertical Gardens, UPB Plant Nursery Pots, etc.

Our tire upcycling initiative took us to the Presbyterian School Ntamulung Early Childhood Education Center and Misspa Orphanage in Mile 5 Nkwen where we educated more than 150 pupils of the school and 53 orphans in tire upcycling. However, we have only been able to upcycle only 87 tires this year which is still great.

With respect to Textile Waste management, our EcoDesigns is currently training 13 young girls in textile recycling and fashion designing and has upcycled 1000 pounds of textile waste into products such as Garments, Pillows, Chalkboard dusters, etc. EcoDesigns also organized her first ecoFashion show which attracted more than 176 persons who came to learn about the work we do and how they can take action to #StopTextileWaste Pollution. Our clothes drive has seen us collect and redistribute more than 300 clothes to some “poor people” and internally displaced persons from the crisis in our region.

2018 saw us join the Steem Blockchain and this was a very important financial and networking achievement for our organization as we were able to raise funds through Steem blogging and @fundition to purchase more machines for ecoDesigns and support some of our projects and programs. Through Steem, we were also able to build a lot of partnerships and network with more supporters of our organization such as @indigoocean @adollaraday, Robert Morris from England and lots of steemians.

In partnership with Kedjom-Keku and La Liberte Arts Group, we have been able to acquire 1000 hectres of afromontane forests in Kedjom-Keku via a leasing partnership for the creation of Kedjom-keku Community Forest. This partnership has seen us create the Kedjom-Keku Community Tree Nursery, engaged in the fencing of the afromontane forests area, install more than 200 Beehives (with financing from @kedjom-keku) in the area as well as initiated the Kedjom-Keku Environmental Day. The maiden edition of Kedjom-Keku environmental day saw us organize arts, music, traditional dancing, drama and sporting competitions which aimed at educating and engaging indigenes of the community to be at the forefront of their biodiversity conservation.
I guess you can now fully understand why I said our achievements for 2018 were gigantic.

In a bid to halt the changing climate, we were able to organize 02 Climate Change Trainings that had over 49 participants. Our climate Action has seen us plant over 3000 Trees as well as save more than 5000 pounds of green house gases waste recycling.

In partnership with La Liberte Arts Group and Y’G Inc., we were able to organize 10 editions of our monthly poetry show, Black Swagger Poetry Slam. The use of art, music, poetry, drama, sport and short documentaries for environmentalism has always been vibrant in our organization and perhaps this explains why we were awarded the UNESCO and ISESCO certificate for our active participation in the use of art for change.
We recorded 17 Green Poems, 11 Green Art, 02 Green Drama, 04 Green Songs and produced more than 12 Green Documentaries with one of them about Flooding and Climate Change hitting 15000 views on Facebook.

With respect to capacity building, our Assistant Director of Projects and Programs, Fon Thanian attended a five weeks Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) training in Ghana whereas the Public Relations Officer, Tubuo Laura and I attended a Ten Days Creative Facilitation Training at Limbe, South West Region – Cameroon organized by our partners, Creative Action Institute. In partnership with FOEPSUD and Paradise on Earth, we organized a Snail Farming with Tyres Training that was attended by more than 21 persons including our volunteers. We also organized a series of capacity building trainings in our office such as training in the production of ecodetergents.

2018 was a very special year for us because we made tremendous efforts to #StopPlasticPollution by finding simple and effective ways to deal with plastics. Two of our most outstanding achievements were the upcycling of plastic bottles to create the UPB Vertical Garden and UPB Tree Nursery Pots. While continuing in our quest to #EndPlasticPollution in the city of Bamenda, we believe these products will bring about meaningful change in the way people deal with plastics and greatly contribute in stopping plastic pollution in our community.

2018 green achievements inspire and I feel like writing till ….

Anyway, permit me commend the efforts of The Greens’ volunteer staff; I am thinking of Thanian, Laura, Scholastica, Charlotte, Irene, Notburga, Diana, Colby and the very long list of 2018 volunteers. Without your selfless sacrifice, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we have done. You all have been outstanding and I pray Mother Earth rewards you abundantly. A green shout out to all our partners; Y’G Inc., La Liberte Arts Group, Abakwa FM Radio, Ministry of Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED-NW), Better World Cameroon, Kedjom-Keku, Creative Action Institute, Reforestation Task Force (RETAFO), CEPOW, New England Biolabs Foundation, Common Wealth Youth Council, The Pollination Project, and you ‘all.
As you savor great memories from 2018, watch out for greater realizations in 2019.

Wishing you a Green New Year 2019.

Ngalim Franklin – Mr. Green 2019
Founder/Executive Director – The Greens

#Call2Action

The Greens is a grassroots environmental organization that strives to educate, inspire and engage young people to take action to combat climate change and be at the forefront of biodiversity conservation and waste management.

Founded in 2010, @thegreens have been able to use arts, sports, media and ICT to educate and engage more than 10,000 young people in Green Poetry, Green Music, Green Arts, Green Radio, and Conservation Champions League.

Her tree planting programs have seen the organization create 04 Community Tree Nurseries, planted more than 300,000 trees and together with @kedjom-keku we have acquired 1000 hectares of afromontane forest in Kedjom-Keku Village of the Bamenda Highlands of the North West Region of Cameroon for the creation and conservation of Kedjom-Keku Community Forest

@thegreens is currently engaged in Waste Management (Waste Business Hub); Plastic Waste Upcycling, Tire Upcycling and Textile Waste Recycling via @ecodesigns.
Her #EndPlasticPollution Campaign has seen the organization sensitize more than 100,000 people about plastic pollution, upcycled more than 10,000 plastic bottles to create UPB Vertical Gardens, UPB Tree Nursery Pots, etc.

Her Textile Recycling Project (@ecodesigns) is currently training 13 young girls for free in textile recycling and fashion designing and has recycled more than 5000 pounds of textile waste.

Her Tire Upcycling Project is educating and engaging young people in schools and communities to #StopBurningTires and upcycle them to create Mushroom Tire Seats, Tire Flower Pots, etc

Support us to continue to educate, inspire and engage young people to take action to combat climate change and be at the forefront of biodiversity conservation and waste management.

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