A SHINING EXAMPLE OF COMMUNITY SPIRIT
Cyprus currently enjoys a thriving volunteer cleanup scene that is driven by several local charities, NGOs, and global campaigns. Offering a ‘fell good’, several participants agree that joining a beach sweep or urban cleanup campaign is a great way to meet people, as well as directly help protect the island’s environment.
LOCAL NGO'S & GRASSROOTS GROUPS
THE CITY FRIENDS CLUB
The City Friends Club is an eco-charity based primarily in Limassol. This organisation coordinates full-time daily street sweeping as well as monthly community volunteer cleanups.
KEEP OUR SAND & SEA PLASTIC FREE
Keep Our Sand and Sea Plastic Free is an initiative by the Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative and the TUI Care Foundation. They run frequent, large-scale beach cleanups targeting coastal regions and engage tourism businesses in zero-waste practices.
UNFICYP
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus occasionally leads environmental and peace-building programs, bringing young people from diverse backgrounds together to clean beaches and nature trails.
THE MAIN VOLUNTEER CLEANUP PROGRAMS
Let's Do It! Cyprus
The Let’s Do It! Cyprus campaign is part of the island’s largest volunteer cleanup operation. Usually running during autumn, the event rallies thousands of volunteers who carry out mass island-wide cleanup operations that comb beaches, parks, and city streets.
Potavristou
Potavristou is a wildly popular Cyprus-led campaign, which is organised by the AKTI Project and Research Centre. It mobilises thousands of volunteers to clean both coastlines and inland areas.
MONTHLY VOLUNTEER-LED MISSIONS
The City Friends Club is a non-profit organisation that organises monthly volunteer-led clean-up missions all over the City of Limassol. Their overall aim is to improve urban spaces. The organisation actively finds places to clean every month. All volunteers then meet at pre-designated public locations and spend their morning collecting all kinds of unwanted refuse. This breathes new life into every corner of the city, and helps to create a more beautiful and cleaner city. The organisation is solely dependent on donations that support the work of its cleaners. Each volunteer surrenders a few hours a month for not only a rewarding experience but one that fills them with a sense of pride.
A GROUP PHOTO
Volunteers often collect all types of discarded refuse and litter. This includes cans, water bottles, cigarette butts, and various food packaging. A pre-selected area is divided into smaller patches. Each patch is then given to volunteers who are issued with trash bags, trash pickers and heavy-duty gloves. Once these trash bags are filled, they then return to the central meeting point. Organisers and volunteers then gather for a group photo next to all the waste they have collected on the day. This acts as an accomplished award for each volunteer.
THE CITY FRIENDS CLUB APP
Further information is available about the schemes run by the City Friends Club in Limassol. This can be done by downloading their smartphone application, which is available on all smartphone platforms. Once downloaded, groups can organise clean-ups and then photograph the results. These images can then be uploaded to the application. Prizes for active participation are always available, and users can swipe left for ‘before’ and right for ‘after’ photos of locations that have been cleaned. These images vividly demonstrate how effective the City Friends Club app works with its active users.
