Start with Yourself

2023Climate Change & Environment

Apr 24

Egypt | Alashmonin Shifters | 2023

Salaam Alaikku!

We are Alashmonin Shifters, a vibrant group of students and youth powered by our dream of bringing environmental change in our community.

15 - 25 years old
Al Ashmonin

The Right-Sized Problem

The Alashmonin Main Canal should be able to provide water to the farms in our village. However, people have been using it as a giant garbage bin, throwing dead animals, kitchen and human waste! This is a serious issue that can harm plants, animals and even the people living nearby.

What did we do?

We knew we needed to do something - and the first step was to let everyone know why turning the main canal into a huge garbage bin was a bad idea. We set up meetings with the Head of the Mallawi City Council and the District Council members to come up with possible solutions to this problem. They stepped up and donated trees, and built garbage containers that were made from recyclable materials–these were then placed in special spots around the area. Cleaning campaigns on both sides of the canal were scheduled, plus garbage trucks passed by our village once a week to collect our garbage. This helped ensure that our canal was neat and tidy.

Next, we gathered our community and held seminars for 193 people in our village. We showed them “The Hidden Danger”, a movie about how water pollution is especially bad for children. Community and government leaders attended too, so we were able to talk to them more about how we can get everyone involved.

We believe that children are the leaders towards a bright future. So we visited 2 schools and showed them the current dirty state of our canal. And then showed them what it could look like if we all helped stop water pollution. We also know that you’re never too young to make a difference, so we visited 4 nurseries in our village too. We put on a puppet theater and special letterbox show to teach the little ones how to be friends with the environment.

To make visual reminders of our advocacy, together with volunteers, we painted big, beautiful murals at the village entrance. These murals shouted our message and reminded everyone of our village’s proud history

Campaign Impact

We accomplished our mission of raising awareness on water pollution. We teamed up with the local government, which was something that we had a hard time with previously. Now they’re very supportive and we got to build strong partnerships with them. Even the police helped keep us safe as we conducted our activities.

Because of our campaign, villagers now think twice before turning the canal into a trash bin. Shop owners are even watering trees in front of their shops and telling people not to litter. Many female villagers have also become protectors of the main canal, telling people where to properly throw garbage. The youth have been planting trees, building garbage bins and monitoring the irrigation of trees, showing that there’s definitely a bright future ahead for our main canal.

Inspired by our success, we’re planning to launch clean-up campaigns in neighboring villages too and forming a committee for environmental protection.

Impact in Numbers