ReefKeepers is a student led service group that is dedicated to advocating for awareness and reducing plastic use within our community and beyond, to help protect the oceans. I joined this service group after going on a school trip where we participated in a coral reef study and beach sweep in Hikkaduwa (a local beach in Sri Lanka). After observing the bleached corals and the huge amount of plastic on the shore, I decided I wanted to be a part of the initiative to help address this global issue. Now I have been a part of this service group two years and this year I have become the co-leader of alongside my friend Alex. This semester we continued with the initiatives that we were doing in previous years along with planning future events for the following semester.
REEFKEEPER EVENTS
Relatively early in the semester our ReefKeepers group brought forward the idea of our school participating in the climate strike led by Greta Thunberg. We constructed an idea and general plan for the event that was feasible before asking other service leaders to help organise the event.
After completing the design for a ReefKeepers t-shirt last year, I was in charge of contacting the company to order the 100% cotton t-shirts. The goal for these shirts was to raise awareness about ocean pollution but also to provide shirts without plastic micro-fibers that are in the material of a majority of clothing. Due to the Easter bombings we only received the t-shirts at the very end of last year, so the majority of sales were done this year. Our fist sales were at the Welcome Back Picnic then at the primary production of “Alice in Wonderland”. After this, our first supply of shirts ran out, so we had to order more before selling them at the secondary production of “Oliver”.
ONGOING ACTION
An ongoing initiative that we take is to collect clean plastic bags from our school community in our plastic collection bins. Ethan, a member of our ReefKeeper group, wanted to design a crafts event that allows people to reuse these plastic bags. Unfortunately, over the summer the plastic bags that we have been collecting were thrown out, therefore Ethan’s event could not occur. Despite this we are continuing to collect plastic bags in attempt to have this event in the near future.
Another form of raising awareness that we have is our ReefKeepers Instagram page @osc.reefkeepers, where we post a combination of facts about the ocean and updates about our ReefKeepers activities. Over this semester we have gained more following mainly from our school community.
A new action that started was the “Green Tips” section in the morning bulletin, I designed a small space for it where one of our ReefKeepers members can insert a new tip twice a week.
FUTURE PROJECTS
A project that Alex was planning for next semester was a neighbourhood sweep called “Plastic Patrol” where we would conduct a brand audit afterwards. So far all of the routes have been planned, a poster and description have been created and the materials are ready for February 2nd next semester.
After much discussion in our group we decided to start the Plastic Free Campus project. When looking over their website to follow the different steps required to complete this we realised that it was a big initiative to take on as one service group. Therefore, Henry and Stefan organised a meeting where they presented to “Train to Sustain” another service group that could potentially help us with this project.
GOALS FOR NEXT SEMESTER
For the next semester of service, we would like to move out of the planning phase of many of our events and work quicker in order to set them in action. This means that as a service group and as leaders we need to be more organised to maximise our time that we have together on Thursday but also to be prepared to spend time out of service to complete what needs to be done.