Schools celebrate the environment

By Andrianne Philipou (Cyprus Weekly 28-01-2011)

A plastic bottle greenhouse, the Can Police and ‘All Things Green’ on show at Limassol’s 3^rd Rotary Environmental fair.

The only international Rotary Club of Limassol, the Berengaria Cosmopolitan, held its third Annual Environmental Fair for Schools on Sunday at the Venue Centre of the Columbia Plaza in Limassol’s Old Town.

The well attended Fair attracted plenty of media and public interest as the ambitious and environmentally aware school groups vied for the awards and certificates that were presented by judges, Commissioner for the Environment, Charalambos Theopemptou and Socrates Metaxas, Manager of the Limassol Water Board.

Other judges included Limassol’s Mayor Andreas Christou, Rotarian dignitaries and several of the project sponsors, including Bambos Charalambous, Manager of the Columbia Plaza. As the events major sponsor, Columbia Plaza hosted the Environmental Fair in their Venue Centre Exhibition room and provided welcome refreshments for the competitors following the prize giving ceremony.

Participating teams from the American Academy Private School, the Grammar School, the Heritage Private School and the Red Dragon Private School took part in the three different age categories: Grade – K6, Grade 7 – 9 and Grade 10 – 13. The competition’s objective was to show how students could develop their own ideas and provide a practical application of the concept to implement it, to help improve the environment, ensure sustain-ability and ensure a practical outcome of the project’s execution. Additionally, the Fair included displays and demonstrations by a number of different environmental groups and other eco-friendly organisations. These included Future B Green Energy, Cartridge World, who offer recyclable printer cartridges, Green Dot (Cyprus) and the Water Board of Limassol. The Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) International Students Club, represented by Pauley Tedoff, gave a presentation to the audience highlighting practical ways of ‘living sustainably.’

Christou congratulated all the pupils taking part saying “this is a fantastic exhibition; the projects on show here are very encouraging. I believe with so much enthusiasm and interest, my aim of `Limassol cleaner, Limassol greener’ will be achieved.” He went on to add that one particular project which was offered by the American Academy and encourages cycling use in the town, has already been endorsed by the municipality and will shortly be implemented.

Theopemptou commented on the pupils’ enthusiasm and efforts: “I must say I was very impressed, there were a number of different projects some of which were above average and what was very impressive was the level of knowledge the students have gained simply participating in the Environmental Fair. The big issue, of course, is always the money or costs involved in implementing the projects… financing some of them would be difficult. But, of course, the most important benefit of doing projects like this is that the tremendous knowledge gained is filtered down from the students to their families and friends and the wider community.”

The Rotary Environmental Fair is designed to promote environmental good practice in Cyprus and is now an annual event supported by the Cosmopolitan-Berengaria Club of Limassol. Club President Bill Dahmer said: “We are delighted with the outcome of this event. It is important to give something back to the community….it’s good to see the students taking this to heart and working so hard to make it such a success.

“This is very much a team effort and together with all the Rotarian members, we would like to thank all our sponsors for helping make this a great success.”

Supporting sponsors of the event were Coca Cola, Sprite, Lanitis, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Gaia Solutions, the Phileleftheros and Cyprus Weekly newspapers.