Beeatoona organizes a training workshop for 50 Lebanese schools

Saturday November 15, 2008

Radisson SAS, Beirut, Lebanon

“Recycle for a better Environment” is the theme “Beeatoona” chose for celebrating the National Environment Day on Saturday November 15, 2008. More than 80 teachers from 50 schools attended the training workshop organized by Beeatoona at Radisson SAS, Beirut, Lebanon.

The training aimed at providing the participants with tools and techniques to raise awareness among students from grade 6 to 9, of 50 schools spread proportionally across the Lebanese territory, on the negative effects of hazardous disposal of home batteries. The workshop also marked the launching of a competition among the participating schools.
There are two categories in the competition:

• Best Awareness Material (A0 Posters, laminated)
• Best Audiovisual Awareness Message (Video Clip, sketch or a short movie).

The school with most collected batteries will be given a trophy and all participating schools and teachers will be given a participation certificate.
As highlighted during the session by Maroun Charabati, President of the Beeatoona, Lebanon lacks of means of treatment of batteries in Lebanon and their hazardous disposal is exposing the population to severe health threats. Lea Kai, Beeatoona’s Environmental specialist, presented to the audience, a comprehensive presentation on Household batteries (A, AA, C, D, 9-volt, etc.) which are a source of heavy metal contamination when disposed of improperly. Classified as domestic hazardous waste, batteries could provoke toxic contamination to the soil, air as well as the surface and ground water. They should therefore be safely disposed of and/or recycled.

Samar Abboud, The Project Manager, stressed on the importance of the Pre and Post tests to be given to the students, which is a tool that helps measuring the impact of the awareness campaign on the students. More than 6000 students will be given tests to measure their knowledge about battery hazards just before the campaign starts. The same students will then undergo the same test at the end of the project and results will be compared to see how well have the awareness campaign managed to increase the students’ awareness level.

It’s worth mentioning that the same training, and project is being replicated in Jordan and Tunisia as part of a coalition formed in June 2008 with Land and Human to advocate progress (LHAP) in Jordan and Club Jeunes Science Hammam-Lif, that aims at raising awareness on the same topic.

The training is one of the activities Beeatoona is implementing in line with its Battery Recycling project, granted by MEPI in 2008. The project will culminate with a final event where winners of the competition will be announced and competition entries will be exposed to the public. The event is expected to gather more than 1000 students and environmental activist, as well as representatives of concerned ministries and governmental bodies.