It seems that every day, we read more about or hear more about the increasing number of serious environmental and social problems facing our human presence on planet Earth. However, the good news is that with the rapid expansion of social media platforms, Youtube presentations and informative publications, apart from being more aware as world citizens, we are also invited in many cases, to join in with finding and applying suitable solutions to these potentially disastrous situations.
Local island newspapers and magazines like the ‘Ibiza optimista’, ‘Ibicasa’ and ‘Arte’, inform us of the huge potential we have as human beings, to pull out of this seemingly fatal dive into the abyss and to play an active role in making the kind of world where we’d all like to live.
Additionally, in the last couple of months, we now have another very attractive platform for positive change, in the shape of ‘Ecoradio Ibiza’ (FM90mhz / www.ecoradioibiza.org), designed especially to promote and discuss various ways of improving our possibility to not only ‘survive’, but also to ‘thrive’, if we can all work together as an active local community.
This is a new platform, where we are all invited to participate, sharing information on existing problems and solutions, plus advertising events and interesting projects from both the growing number of Ibiza based ecology groups, plus a variety of individuals who have something positive to offer its listeners.
There’s also a wonderful new bilingual website from Digital Grafic called Ibiza Inspiration (see www.ibizainspiration.com), where you can find lots of inspiring articles and good news from both Ibiza and all over the world.
Considering the fact that we now have a number of interesting projects to develop within the Transparent Communications and event management branch of the Ibiza Fènix movement, we propose to invite the operators of the different elements to join forces under the umbrella organisation.
Since the Association is already legally formed and with an active bank account, the next move is to organise a General Assembly and elect a new team of directors, plus more members onboard and do some serious synergistic actions!
At Casita Verde, we go on with our in-house projects of planting up the vegetable gardens for the winter period, refurbishing the caravan next to the car park and finishing the beautiful eco-wagon sustainable living showcase, which will hopefully be ready around the end of the year.
Also, depending on our intake of suitable volunteers over the winter, we hope to continue developing the nature pond, which had been postponed during the summer months. One thing we know for sure, is that it successfully fills up with water when it rains heavily, so we obviously chose the right place to build it!
Also, with great thanks to Howard Lewis, one of our resitdent volunteers from England, we have now launched a brand new version of the Casita Verde website, which will eventually replace the present one at www.greenheartibiza.org and which will be completely controlled / updated by our own staff here in Ibiza. The new website which has been built using a Wix website management system, has many new features and sections, allowing us to instantly present all the events, projects, workshops and volunteering opportunities offered by both Casita Verde Ibiza and also by the new Casita Verde in Granada. (see www.casitaverde.com)
Another piece of good news this month, is that Eva, the Dutch girlfriend from our in-house builder / Carpenter from Holland, will now be responsible for the social media announcements associated with the Casita Verde and Greenheart movement here in Ibiza. This should lead to a much more efficient and coordinated management of this very important part of our local operation and hopefully help to keep everyone informed about all our activities.
Meanwhile, the action continues with the development of a suitable strategy to eliminate the contamination from ‘use and throw’ plastic packaging and shopping bags, plus utensils such as plates, glasses, cups, knives, forks and spoons etc. Apart from the fact that the island council is planning to ban the sale and use of these items over the next five years, various groups in the ‘Ibiza and Formentera without plastic’ movement are also planning some awareness raising events and projects to help with the transition towards a plastic free future.
For example, together we are proposing several different ideas in collaboration with the ‘European week of waste reduction’, which will take place from the 19th to the 24th of November this year.
For this special event, Ibiza Limpia and our friends from the organisation ‘Proartso’ are in the process of making a short documentary film explaining a simple protocol about how to plan and manage a beach cleaning activity. This movie, which has been kindly sponsored by the local branch of the international ‘Remax’ Estate Agency company, will be presented together with other short videos, plus the documentary film ‘Out of Plastic’, recently produced by Line Hadsbjerg from Mallorca and shown in the Civic centre of Jesus earlier this year.
Details of the date, time and place where these videos will be shown can be found on our Casita Verde Ibiza Facebook page when they are available.
On Sunday the 18th of November (just one day before the week of waste reduction begins), members of Casita Verde and Proartso will be involved in the presentation of a Cultural event between 12 noon and 18.00h, which will take place in the public area just in front of the Musset restaurant of Santa Gertrudis. This ‘Jornada Intercultural Gastronómica’ will be a public event free from ‘use and throw’ plastic and will be presented by residents from seven different countries,. There will be typical food dishes from each country, plus our famous Aloe Vera drinks from Casita Verde (instead of the usual chemical soft drinks in cans). There will also be traditional music and dancing from various participating countries and a variety of different acts from resident artists to liven up the event.
During the following week, we’ll be cleaning a road near to Casita Verde with our electric car, plus doing a beach clean-up of course and on Saturday the 24th of November, we’ll all be in Plaza de Parque in Ibiza town, doing several activities related to waste reduction, (various workshops on waste reduction and recycling, plus exhibitions of artworks from recycled materials and distribution of information etc) from 11am until around 2pm, then from 4pm until 6pm (weather permitting). See our facebook page for further details and last minute info!
Finally, this month we are happy to announce that Casita Verde Ibiza is looking for suitable students to join our three month residential City & Guilds level III study course in Community development, sponsored by the European Erasmus education programme and due to begin on the 7th of January 2019. Interested participants should check out the information following this link on our new Casita Verde Website https://www.casitaverde.com/erasmus and apply as soon as possible, since places are limited.
If you have any questions about alternative lifestyle techniques, or want to know how you can be a more eco-conscious citizen, please come and see us on Sundays and Thursdays at Casita Verde, or on Saturdays at the Local products market in Forada.
You can also get in touch by email, sending your request to info@casitaverde.com, or calling our main office on 971 187353 / 608838190.
With warm greetings from Casita Verde,
Chris Dews – coordinator
This is the short movie we recommend watching for this month: