On Saturday 23rd June, 40 members of BIS HCMC's community, including students, parents and teachers from across our 3 campuses set out to clean up Thao Dien in support of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

The event was the second clean-up organised by the Global Goals Club this year, in partnership with Clean Up Vietnam, an NGO based in Ho Chi Minh City. We have been inspired by their mission to clean up Vietnam and these clean up days are one way for us to take action to reduce the amount of litter in the Thao Dien area. We also hope to raise awareness of sustainability and the environmental impacts of economic growth through these clean up events. The long term goal is for our area of Thao Dien to become environmentally sustainable, where litter will no longer be the main cause of environmental concern. By raising awareness through the clean up we hope to then be able to inspire others in the area to join us, and begin working with local businesses to reduce the waste that is produced in this area.

After meeting at the Early Years and Infant Campus, our group of volunteers went out to collect litter along various routes leading away from the campus. In small groups armed with gloves, tongs, and large bags, they picked up paper, plastic, and metal rubbish from the streets. In 3 hours our groups collected 26 bags of rubbish! Ngoc Duc Huynh, Year 8 student and member of the Global Goals club provides his thoughts on the importance of environmental clean ups;

“Throughout our clean up, we experienced first hand how this environmental problem is happening in our local Thao Dien area. The most common types of rubbish were plastic bags, cups, bottles, and takeaway food containers, all forgotten on pavements and getting into the sewers. We learnt how much impact our actions have on the local environment and this is encouraging us to contribute more and take local actions to eliminate waste. It didn’t matter how long we travelled for the rubbish collection, it came down to how many rubbish bags we had filled up in total.

This clean up is an example of “What difference can one person make?” Through our actions, we have demonstrated that everyone can change the environmental situation in our local area - local actions lead to global outcomes. Together we've contributed to reducing rubbish on our local streets, raising awareness, and receiving positive feedback from local members of the commuity during the clean up. Finally, we realised that everyone, from any age group, can make steps along a sustainable, environmentally-friendly path through such simple actions.

We can’t perform it on our own.

We shouldn’t just look at our current situation, but instead focus on future actions.

We are representing something significant. We are representing that our local Thao Dien area will stay clean for the future.”

Duc is a huge advocate of how everyone can make a difference. In March this year he spoke at our inaugural TEDxYouth@BISHCMC event on this very topic:

A huge thank you to everyone who came out and took part in this community clean up. Put a note in your diaries of our next event taking place on World Clean Up day, Saturday 15th September.