An environmental awareness campaign was organised in Khosoos last week to mark World Environment Day. Awareness activities, such as cleaning the streets around the schools, planting trees, and painting school walls took place. At the end of the day there was an awareness session for all the community members about World Environment Day.

The purpose of the campaign was to create awareness and involve the local community in activities to improve the living and environmental conditions in Khosoos. 25 students from the area participated in the event, all of them “Environmental Guards” who have been trained by the Participatory Development Programme in Urban Areas (PDP) to take care of the environment inside their schools.

“We need to teach young people about hygiene so when they grow up they make sure their neighbourhoods are clean. Hygiene is very important to life”, said Ahlam Abdel-Meguid Mohamed, a 12-years old student and environmental guard at Khosoos Primary School.

The event was organised by the solid waste management component of the PDP in cooperation with the city council and the NGO “Friends of the Environment”. The city council and Friends of the Environment contributed with vehicles to collect the garbage, workers and soil for the garden that was planted outside the school complex. Among the attendees was also Khosoos city chief Abdel-Barah Hasheesh.

The PDP’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) activities focus on establishing an integrated and community-based solid waste management system in two cities in Qalyubya: Khosoos and Khanka. The aim is to recover valuable resources that exist in waste, by building sustainable and environmentally sound methods for composting and recycling.

PDP Coordinator and SWM Manager Dr. Günther Wehenpohl said: “Our aim is to build trust among different actors in the solid waste management system, while at same time improving environmental conditions for people living in Khosoos.”

The PDP is an Egyptian-German development programme implemented by the Ministry of Planning (MOP) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Its aim is to enhance the living conditions for the poor urban population of Greater Cairo.

PDP targets the Greater Cairo Region where 60% of the people live in unplanned, densely populated areas that lack basic services and social infrastructure, and are suffering from environmental pollution.

More information about the Participatory Development Programme can be found on: www.egypt-urban.net

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