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A new initiative by the Belize City Council will target a specific group of persons, who despite their young age should make a big difference in motivating others to keep surroundings clean. Today, Project Pride was launched and as 7News found out it involves not only the city council but Saint John’s College and the children from All Saints Primary School. We also spoke with the winner of the project’s poster competition Kodie August, a second form student from SJC.

Kodie August, Poster Competition Winner
“The country is in a bad state right now in terms of filth and cleanliness and something should be done about it I personally believe.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Are you a member of the environmental club here at SJC?”

Kodie August,
“No but now I think I want to join.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“What advice you have for your peers and for the primary school students who will be involved in Pride Project?”

Kodie August,
“Just to go that little extra mile and help keep Belize clean.”

Roger Espejo, City Councillor
“The way how the project is modelled, we are using high school students, we are using standard sixers as the adoptees where the high school students will be delivering presentations, will be delivering campaigns, and thereby sending that message and in effect asking them to late carry that message on to their minors and in effect creating a domino effect.

It is a two prong project. One has to do with the classroom component of giving presentations, of giving compelling arguments why it is important to be proud of your country and why it is important. The second component has to do with clean up campaigns. It shows that students want to become involved as well. It is not a matter of just talking the talk but also walking the walk. So at the pilot stage, St. John’s High School students will do clean-up campaigns in certain parts of the city. We will come back to the drawing board as a steering committee, we will tweak the system, and then try to roll it out with other high schools and other primary schools.”

Wayne Usher, City Councillor
“Starting into schools, it goes from there to their colleagues in the classrooms and then they go home and they talk with their parents about it and if we could get them to have a sense of responsibility, a sense of caring, then they will in turn do all of us the favour and say listen, pick up that, don’t throw. They will send the message out there to their peers and to their parents. It is a wonderful situation for us and we welcome it and we support it fully.”

The pilot project will run for a month after which it is expected more high schools and primary schools will get involved. On Saturday mornings, the students will be involved in clean up campaigns throughout the city.