By Yunus S Saliu
City Link Ostend-Banjul Project in collaboration with the Standard Chartered Bank; West African Bird Study Association (WABSA); Gambia Ocean House; Clean Earth Gambia; Gambia Armed Forces; Banjul City Council; Development Oriented Citizens (DOC) of Banjul among other volunteers Saturday jointly cleaned the Banjul Beach and environs in commemoration of the 2021 International Coastal Cleanup Day (ICCD), which always marks every third Saturday of September.
International Coastal Cleanup Day is a day set aside to maintain and clean coastline to further protect the coastal flora and fauna and as well “to document littering around the coastline.”
Celebrating it in The Gambia, City Link Ostend-Banjul Project championed the day as facilitated by Gambia Ocean Heroes with other volunteers to clean the beaches in Banjul to make it tidy and healthy for users.
Speaking at the cleaning exercise, Maimuna Treira, outreach coordinator for Clean Earth Gambia expressed delight in seeing some volunteers, especially young people in forefront participating in the International Coastal Cleanup Day.
She noted that all partners decided to do it collectively this year because it is easier doing it together and cleaning the beaches in Banjul is very important taking into consideration numbers of visitors to the capital city.
She therefore encouraged users of the beach to always take good care of the environment while he called on other youths to join in the advocacy of making environment a worthwhile.
Ismaila Bah representing DOC of Banjul said the day was very important as different stakeholders converged as one to clean up the coastal areas.
He noted that they are living within the environment and it is necessary to make it better, as they are doing everything to make the city a clean environment to leave.
Chuks Ugha, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank described the day ‘extremely important,’ saying it is one of the key pillars for the Standard Chartered Bank by accelerating pollution to zero.
The CEO expressed its bank’s pleasure to associate with the Banjul City Council, City Link Ostend-Banjul and other volunteers on such day to do the small an initial contribution by helping to clean the beaches.
He noted that the “beaches in The Gambia are beautiful, clean and pristine and natural treasure which I noticed that the council is very passionate about and obviously our partners from outside too are passionate of it.”
CEO Ugha assured of Standard Chartered Bank further partnering with the city council to support in most of the council initiative, as they have lots of ideas with them.
He therefore encouraged people to stop throwing waste such as plastic, non-degradable materials into the ocean because it is not healthy in any way and as well not promoting eco-tourism.
Honorable Omar BS Touray, deputy Mayor of Banjul highlighted on the cleaning and the importance of making the city green.
He delighted over the council project known to be City Link Ostend-Banjul Project and noted that the greening Banjul is one part of the project components, that’s planting of coconut at the beaches and trees in some other parts of the city.
Cleaning the beaches, he said is not just for only the people Banjul but for the whole country taking into consideration of the climate change, therefore “we are very happy to see numerous volunteers around on this ICCD for the clean up,”
Jonas Scherrens, Ostend City Project Coordinator gave a background of the City Link Ostend-Banjul Project dated back to 2003 a partnership he described as “very good and genuine cooperation,” between the two cities.
He highlighted on their various events and upcoming activities, noting that many activities are taking place.
Official from the Gambia Navy and Hassan Maxwell of Gambia Ocean House all made comment about the ICCD.
