On 17th June 2011, we, a group of 25 volunteers, set off to Batam. We were to help clean up a village I visited a few months back, in Dec 2010. Look at the photographs and you will see the amount of trash the village has on their beaches.
The initial planning was plagued with issues like security, equipment purchase, cost, language issues, safety, first aid, accommodation and transportation. Also, from the recce we did in Feb, we told ourselves that a team of 25 people was needed to cover about 25% of the trash load at this village. Yes, just 25% because the trash load is heavy. We conducted several sessions of briefing on coastal cleanup, basic first aid and team building activities in nature areas for acclimatisation as most of the volunteers were first timers.
Transportation to the island was exceptionally difficult. We took a ferry to Batam, 1hr, another bus ride of 1hr to Galang Baru village and finally a boat ride to the island, another hour. In total, it took 3hrs to reach the village. Why this village then? Well, the other villages were not 'open' to us entering their village. Some did not want us to meddle with their lifestyles and were hostile. And there were some villages who were more interested in money then allowing us to improve their environment and the mangroves growing around their village.
Look at the map I attached in the photograph gallery for the journey taken, in black. We had to stay overnight in Triniti hotel in the city because it is dangerous to stay in the village. There are pirates in the Riau region. Certainly do not want to be robbed by pirates! So, we set off on 17th June and visited an orphanage. We bought 25kg of cooking oil, 50kg of rice, 10kg of washing powder and bottles of mineral water for the orphanage. Also, the 40 children we met were treated to buns and milk. Most of these children were orphaned because of the Acheh Tsunami disaster. After playing some games with them and a singing session, we had dinner at Triniti. After dinner, we did an equipment check and had a final briefing for the main mission; cleanup at the village.
We had the following equipment for the task the next day:
5 Chang Kol - for digging a pit for the village to burn the trash (There was no way to get a transport to bring the trash to the city. Any ideas for trash removal will be helpful in future)
3 Spades for removing soil and digging too.
100 trash bags (Large)
Cotton gloves 40 pairs
Hand shields 100 pairs (The villagers expressed interest to help so we prepared these hand shields for them.)
Long BBQ tongs 6
25 pairs of boots
Btw, we bought these equipment from Batam. They were very cheaply bought. each chang kol and spade cost $5.20 each!
We spent a total of $150 for equipment and first aid.
In total, each volunteer paid $200 for two days. This included the one night stay at Triniti Hotel, 2 dinners, 1 lunch, Ferry return trip, bus transportation, shopping for the orphans, return boat trip to village and all equipment.
ok. Cut to the chase. We set off at 7am in the morning from Triniti Hotel and reached the village at 9.15am. At first it was raining. But, when we reached the jetty, the rain was already just light drizzle. We could not ask for better weather to do coastal cleanup and digging the pit! Look at the photographs for trash load and the cleaning activity.
The report card.
100 trash bags.
600 kg collected.
No time to use the ICCS card to separate the trash so, we differentiated plastics, wrappers, clothing??, glass, metals.
(Plastics takes first place, wrappers is 2nd place, clothing is third, metal is next and last is glass. The most interesting is that we did not see any straws)
