A day with "LimpiaVentura"

One day when I was speaking with a friend I discovered that she occassionally cleans beaches. This sparked my curiosity to find out more.  

"Cleaning beaches? Is it a new job that you have?" - "No, I do it for pleasure. I get together with other people that form part of a group that's called LIMPIAVENTURA..."

Being that I wanted to know more about this particular venture, I decided to go to one of the events of Limpiaventura. The organizers of this group get together every Sunday, socializing with all members or people that are simply interested in participating for the first time on any given beach in Fuerteventura. Juan, for example, is a native of the Canary Islands that never misses the opportunity to clean up our beaches, and he always motivates the group to chug on for more than the two hours required for each clean up.

By going on these routine clean up sessions, I've been able to get to know many people of all ages and many different nationalities. You can hear people speaking in Spanish, English, Italian, French and German. Children, adolescents, women, men...  they are all smiling and full of the desire to get our coast into better shape.

It's a way of getting to know dynamic people, nature lovers and close friends of our Earth that want to give an example so that future generations don't do what we have done: dispose of our waste in the oceans.

It all began thanks to the initiative of three friends: Alina, Carmen and Denise. Walking their dogs along the beach, they would see a lot of rubbish and always pick it up. Then one Sunday in January of 2015, one of them made phone calls to all of their contacts. The following Sunday they were eight people cleaning up. Another Sunday, 50 people showed up.

Since then, they've united their forces every Sunday.

Now more and more people get together to put on gloves and roam around with a trash bag to fill it up with all the rubbish that people have left on the beach or that has come in with the tide. More and more full trash bags--and every time a higher level of satisfaction.

They eliminate junk from our beaches that end up being death threats to fish, sea turtles, marine mammals and birds.

With Limpiaventura, you can discover new places on the island and have a good time with like-minded people that share their picnic goodies of fruit, bread, cheese and biscuits.

At the moment, every Sunday they receive delicious fruit of the season from the fruit providers of Frutalia de Corralejo as a token of support.

After hours of cleaning with Limpiaventura, I've learned the necessity of this initiative and I believe that a group like this deserves a prize. Their slogan is that ''change begins inside yourself''.

I want to do some publicity for this group with this article being that they are already evolving beyond simple beach clean up: platforms to promote recycling, a book-to-be-published to take to schools with children's stories, collaboration with animal protection organizations, the freeing of sea turtles, art workshops and social integration of people with Down Syndrome. Any suggestions are appreciated that might further the cause.

Let's finish with the idea that motivates the participants of Limpiaventura:

THE WORLD CHANGES WITH YOUR EXAMPLE, NOT WITH YOUR OPINION.

And remember to take your trash with you when you leave the beach. Don't throw your trash in the street or ocean.

Facebook Page to contact:  Limpiaventura 

by Angela Pasquali in collaboracion with Alina Kunz

 

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