Soneva Supports Waste Education In The Maldives

-- Hotels, 7/2/2008 9:21:00 AM

Six Senses’ Hub, Bangkok, July 2, 2008: Domestic waste is one of the prime environmental issues in the Maldives, with significant amounts clogging landfills in the beautiful Indian Ocean island nation. In order to stem the continuing problem, it is essential to educate the population on actions they can personally take to assist the mission. To this end, multi-award winning Soneva Fushi and Soneva Gili have taken it upon themselves to support four local island communities to increase awareness and to provide further education on the principals of waste management.

The Waste Education and Awareness Project is a 12-month programme involving over 350 hosts from Soneva Fushi and Soneva Gili, and nearly 700 residents of the surrounding island communities. The programme educates on reduction, segregation and disposal methods, and also shows how to compost household waste and effectively recycle using a variety of methods. A waste champion team will be trained in each resort to monitor and lead the initiative throughout its duration.

The project is designed and coordinated by Live & Learn Environmental Education, a Fiji based NGO, that has successfully implemented community mobilization and capacity programmes in over a dozen countries throughout South Asia and Pacific regions.

“We believe there are a number of ways island communities can address the issue. It is just a matter of changing attitudes towards waste and learning to actively reduce, re-use and use the disposal waste to their advantage, such as mulching or composting. It’s going to take a while, but we are positive that partnerships like this will definitely help increase local capacity in dealing with the issue. We just hope more resorts will use Six Senses Resorts & Spas lead as an example”, said Shafeeqa, Program Manager from Live & Learn.