‘Pirisidu (Clean) Beach’ - An FoG Campaign to Keep Our Beaches Clean

The Foundation of Goodness has always encouraged its beneficiaries to play an active role in their community through a variety of aid and outreach programmes. One way that our students and staff care for their village and its surroundings by giving back in a meaningful way is through special clean-ups conducted on a weekly or monthly basis.

Being a coastal community which depend heavily on the bounty of the ocean to secure their livelihoods, it is essential for the villagers to understand that keeping the ocean and its surrounding environment clean and pollution free is directly linked to their own well-being and quite often, setting an example by leading from the front is exactly what is needed to motivate others to do the same.

Now, the time has come to expand our activities from taking up the burden ourselves, to educating, motivating and facilitating the community and other beach goers to join us and become just as passionate and involved in keeping our coastlines clean.

To this end, the Foundation of Goodness organised a large scale beach cleaning campaign recruiting the local community, police and municipal leaders as well as 150 of our own staff members.

Notices were posted alerting the community of the upcoming programme which took place on the 11th of November and encouraging their participation.

The event was not just about collecting detritus from the coast, it also involved placing waste collection receptacles along with clear instruction for people to reduce waste and properly dispose of it. Additional signage was placed in English, Sinhala and Tamil encouraging people to keep the beach clean and the importance of preventing pollution.

We hope that this campaign will help reduce the mounting problem that we as a society face today with ocean pollution. After all, we only have one planet,  and the responsibility falls on each and every one of us to ensure it’s wellbeing.

23rd November 2018