Activism in school curriculum

DEPUTY Speaker of Parliament Lenora Qereqeretabua believes that there is a dire need to inculcate recycling activism in the local school curriculum.

She mentioned this when she spoke at a roundtable discussion yesterday on World Recycling Day celebrations — on the topic; the need for activism in the recycling and waste management space, a critical component.

“Activism is why we are here and I only wish that there were many more of us,” Ms Qereqeretabua said.

“I believe that the activism needs to be inculcated from a very young age and this is why I am going to keep pushing and advocating for this to be part of our school curriculum.

“Seeing rubbish being thrown out of moving vehicles, I have experienced it; activism is something that, it’s vital, we need more activists to encourage people to be activists,” she said.

A passionate environmentalist, the Assistant Local Government Minister informed tourism stakeholders that there was an urgent need to take recycling activism seriously in the country.

“The rubbish that I see is heartbreaking when I go diving in the village and I can already imagine the horror that we will have to fix in the not too distant future.”

Pacific Recycling Foundation founder Amitesh Deo acknowledged the changing political environment in Fiji which allowed them to host such thought-provoking initiatives.

“Mid-last year we choose the same round table discussion with the same segments and discussion topics,” he said.

“We were told to water down several aspects of the segment; including a change in the name of the event itself before certain agencies could participate.

“However, we did not have to water down any aspect of our segment for today’s roundtable. For us recycling advocates, this itself represents a small victory.”