The recycling centre is finally under construction, the money was used to pay the builders to start with the frame of the centre. More construction material was bought and the workers managed to do a lot with what was purchased.

Having a proper place to store the recycling will protect it from the sun, rain, wind, etc. This will also encourage people to continue separating their waste as they will have a nice structure where they will be also able to learn how to make hand crafts with rubbish.

There is still a lot of work to do at the centre. The center will be built with the plastic bottles that have been collected in town. People have been coming to help fill up the bottles and we are also using glass bottles. This will show the community that they can reuse these kinds of material to build houses or other structures. 

Daily collection of compost has been going really well with some donations helping to purchase hosing to water the compost area rather than carrying buckets a couple of hundred meters.

Meanwhile construction of the centre continues. Electric wires and lamps have been purchased and installed to aid work meaning that the labourers can continue work after daylight. We have also purchased and transported more building materials, unfortunately as Punta Allen is a remote area it is difficult to source materials locally.

We are seeing real progress at the centre and hope to complete the first stage of construction over the next few weeks.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported this project and we look forward to sharing more news soon.

We would like to share the most recent trustee report from the GVI Charitable Trust. This report covers the six month period from July to December 2011.

This has been by far the most successful period. In six months we have raised nearly as much as we did the whole previous year. This increase in funding has brought a corresponding increase in the impact we have been able to create on our programs around the world.

During this period we have invested in sustainable education across Latin America. This includes support for the elderly in Guatemala and income generation schemes to support education in Honduras and Ecuador. In Mexico we have worked with a community to establish a recycling centre and in Kenya our partners in Mombasa will now see impoverished students complete primary education to earn qualifications for the first time.

These are just a few highlights of an amazing, productive and rewarding six months. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and played a crucial role in these achievements.

• GVI Charitable Trust Annual Report (PDF)
  

We are very excited to share that construction at the recycling centre has now started.

During the recent lobster festival celebration, we had a busy day in the recycling centre. After Tropical storm Rina, a lot of the plastic was blown away (as it does not have a proper storage place), so we joined forces to tidy up the plastic and things were shifted around as the construction will start soon and we need to make space for all the building materials.

Also, 10 new containers were built to place around town as more people wish to join the programme.

The construction is starting this weekend, after discussion with the community we have decided to build the centre with plastic bottles!! Yes, with all the plastic and glass bottles that have been collected in town! People in town will come in groups to help the centre, and hopefully in a few weeks it will be finished!

We are still focused on raising funds to finish building the recycling centre. Thank you to everyone who has supported this project so far or will moving forward.

The recycling project in Mexico is developing into a wonderful initiative. There are a few points around the small fishing village of Punta Allen where people have containers where they separate recycling. Everyday somebody will take  charge of collecting the recycling around town with a tricycle. They also collect organic waste from restaurants and houses around town. In one day, they can collect up to 400kg of organic waste and 20kg of plastic.

We had been using a tricycle which had been donated by the municipality however due to the weight of the daily recycling the tires were damaged. Donations to this project helped us to purchase new tires specially designed to hold up to a ton so they can carry their waste and plastics around easily. As the tricycle now works much more efficiently larger quantities can be managed and staff are not injuring themselves as they struggle with flat tires.

As more and more people are joining the initiative we needed to make more containers to place around town. We bought the material needed and the community worked together to make them. As a result many more families now separate their waste.

As we do not yet have a built structure at the centre we also used some of the metallic wire to create more organized spaces where people can place recycling and made more containers for the compost which is being produced. The wire helps to hold the “compost cakes” in place.

In other news we are thrilled to share we recently entered this project into a competition to receive some government funding and we were successful, this really is amazing news although the funds will not cover the full cost of building a centre so we will be maintaining our fundraising efforts.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported this project.

Making containers

After one year of hard work the recycling project continues! The recycling centre is taken care of by Doña Isabel and her family, she has been working really hard to continue collecting the plastics and organic waste from town. The people in town continue to separate their waste and put it in the containers around town.

To mark the one year anniversary we held a two day celebration where we organized different activities like beach cleans, talks about the environment, handcraft workshops, documentaries, games and a food market. We started with a town and beach clean where we collected over 3 tons of rubbish!!! Children from kindergarten, primary and secondary school participated along with their teachers and parents in this great work. We also worked on the recycling centre, more containers were built, a new ramp was built, and a lot of plastic was crushed.

To teach people how to reuse the rubbish we had a craft workshop where the kids made some really nice photo frames and some paper mache fish.

To complement the activities we invited other organizations like our local partners Amigos de Sian Ka'an, who gave a talk on the health of the planet and the human health; and CESIAK (Sian Ka'an Ecological centre) to talk about the different kinds of mangroves and their importance, as well as leading the craft workshop.

The event was a huge success and everybody in Punta Allen is willing to continue working towards the construction of their recycling centre.

Our local Partners, Punta Allen Verde have made a brilliant short video to encourage recycling in the local area. The video uses humour to help people relate but also successfully illustrates how easy it is for everyone to contribute.

Watch this great video here.

Things are going really well on the project Punta Allen Verde, we have been encouraged by the local people who are very motivated to keep up with the challenge. A visit to Xel-Ha recycling centre was organized to know a little bit more about waste separation and compost. Fourteen people from Punta Allen, adults and kids, went to visit the centre with the intention to learn more and to get some ideas for their recycling centre. It was a good fun trip but also one which brought educational value to help us move forward.

The Kids Club and their mothers came to our research base in Pez Maya for a full day of activities. Early in the morning several cars came to our driveway full with kids and mothers to enjoy all the activities that we had prepared.

We started the day with an EFR child care course for the mothers, Stu and Lluvia demonstrated their skills and got the mums to practice them. They were very enthusiastic about the course asking lots of questions and telling us stories of how they had managed so far in emergency situations with their children.

At the same time, the children were having lots of fun with all the presentations and games. They started with a puppet show to teach them how important the reef, mangroves and lagoon are and how they are connected, having as an example, the life cycle of the rainbow parrotfish.

After that they had two games, on the first one they had to put the parts on the fish blindfolded and the second one was about the parrotfish life cycle; where the volleyball court was converted in to a mangrove, lagoon and reef. They also had a talk about rubbish and how to separate it, and a few games, including one where they had to aim for the right hole with the rubbish. Last but not least they had the Olympics where the fin race couldn’t be missed, they also had a big race and tug of war.

Finally the afternoon was closed with a volleyball game where for the first time, the Pez Maya team won against the very in form mothers.

Everybody had a great time and lots of fun, and the Punta Alleners were very happy and pleased and gave a big clap to all the Pez Maya team!!

Training, Punta Allen, GVI Charitable Trust