The European Union Delegation in Sierra Leone has in collaboration with partners on Saturday 1st October 2022, joined people from all works of life volunteered and took part in EU beach clean-up event from the Aberdeen to Lumley beach in the West of Freetown. The event is one of EU’s Sierra Leone annual activities which had been going on for years. It was organised by the EU Delegation in partnership with Shout Climate Change Africa (SCCA), the Government of Sierra Leone through the Freetown City Council (FCC) and the National Tourist Board (NTB).
The cleaning drive attracted hundreds of participants including dignitaries ranging from government officials, diplomats to representatives from various communities, corporate persons, students, waste management teams and a host of other beach lovers.
The EU Country Team and partners chose this beach location so Freetown residents could have and feel the positive impact on the state of cleaning the ocean in our municipality areas like the Lumley-Aberdeen beach: place that draws a handsome number of daily visitors.
The event started with a brief remark from the Head of EU Delegation in Sierra Leone, Ambassador Manuel Muller who warmly welcomed participants. In his words; Ambassador Muller appreciated the EU collaboration with FCC, NTB and SCCA. He continues by commenting on the importance of beach cleaning, raising awareness about the need to protect the environment and keep the ocean clean for aquatic and public health safety.
Brief statements were also made by the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Freetown City Council Deputy Administrator, and the Deputy General Manager of National Tourist Board.
The event was a huge success and they removed over 2,500 trash bags of rubbish from the beachside of Lumley and Aberdeen.
Volunteers collected an array of waste materials, but the main types were sewage, glass bottles, single-use plastic bottles, cans, unidentified plastic pieces, pieces of clothing, shoes and fishing debris such as fishing threads, gauge, and ropes.
This was another real eye opener for the Freetown city residents/volunteers as it highlighted the amount of rubbish that actually makes its way to the oceans – waste that could be avoided if people chose more sustainable alternatives, recycled the items where possible or disposed off their waste correctly.
One of the major EU partner in the event Shout Climate Change Africa CEO Mr. Finnex John Asibor has this to say: “We are very happy being an implementing partner with EU on beach clean-up for good five years consecutively, Which beach cleaning is part of SCCA’s mandate we see it as part of our responsibility we look forward to planning more events like this in the future to help combat the amount of waste in our communities and our oceans”.
At the end of the cleaning process, the cleaning tools were donated by EU Delegation to National Tourist Board presented by EU Ambassador Manuel Muller received by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Mr. Andrew L. Sorie.
In one piece, the event ended up achieving the required results as all the demarcated beach locations were effectively tidied viewing the beach after the said cleaning
