Muslims Making Ukraine Cleaner: Volunteers of Islamic Centres Joined the World Cleanup Day

On 19 September, volunteers from Islamic Cultural Centres all over Ukraine joined the World Cleanup Day which this year coincided with International Clean Beach Day. The cleanup was held in partnership with “Let’s do it GREEN, Ukraine!”, supported by the State Ecology Inspection of Ukraine and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

Сomplying with the organisers’ request, the participants were abiding by the quarantine rules, such as wearing masks when around other people and keeping the social distance. It wasn’t a hard thing to do when working in the open air. One can find the pictures from the cleanup on social media, by the hashtags #ЯприбравТвояЧерга (Ukr. #ICleanedUpNowItsYourTurn) and #МіжнароднийДеньЧистихБерегів (Ukr. #InternationaCleanBeachDay).

18 volunteers from Kyiv Islamic Cultural Centre (including those from “Maryam” & "AnNur" NGOs), joined the cleanup at Skver Sporidnenykh Mist (Ukr. Related Cities Square) near Ipodrom Metro Station. First, the Muslims cleaned the lakeside: they collected syringes separately, in plastic bottles, and also separated glass into special bags. Unfortunately, the rest of garbage was collected together, and it will end up in a landfill. While the Muslims were one of the first to finish their part, they were the last to leave the location, as the organisers asked them to clean the territory of a local polyclinic as well. Their overall trash count totalled about a hundred 200L bags.

12 adults and 3 children joined the cleanup in Lviv on behalf of Lviv Muhammad Asad Islamic Cultural Centre (including those from WO “Irada”) and put to order the the Zamarstynivsky urban forest. Their efforts resulted in about two dozen 200L bags and a clean area. Syringes left by local drug addicts were carefully collected in a plastic bottle. Having finished the job, they filmed an appeal to their compatriots, asking them to clean up after themselves, especially in recreation areas.

A dozen Muslims from Dnipro Islamic Cultural Centre, mostly students, joined their effort to clean up the Lazar Hloby Park. While the city’s central park is cared of quite well by the municipal employees, sadly, they still had plenty of work to do.

8 volunteers from Kharkiv Islamic Cultural Centre joined the other teams (45 teams in general) to clean up the Shcherbachivsky coniferous forest. Such number of participants added to competitiveness, and they ended up collecting almost 5 tons of trash!

12 volunteers from the Islamic Cultural Centre Vira (Zaporizhzhia) cleaned up a part of the Dnipro river bank. Together they removed over 2000L of trash.

Noteworthy, International Clean Beach Day was initiated in 1986 in order to draw public attention to the problem of water pollution with household waste, waste management, and environmental consciousness. The World Cleanup Day is being held in 180 countries; in Ukraine it is held for 5 years straight.