Green House Club seeking to build community centre of plastic bottles, tyres

The Non Pareil Green House Club, a beneficiary of last year’s Youth Innovation Programme of Guyana (YIPoG), is hoping to secure financial grants for its idea of building a community centre almost entirely of plastic bottles and used tyres.
Project Officer Romel Putulall on Friday told Guyana Times about the club’s vision.
He said the club last year had received partial funding of $4 million from the Education Ministry, but the money is being used to install a fence and a washroom facility for security purposes.

“We are hoping that for this year’s Youth Innovation Programme, we can bid for the remaining money to hopefully complete the building,” he advised.
According to him, the overall projected expenditures run up to $9.5 million, but that is really a ‘cheap’ price, because many youths, primarily between the ages of seven and 15 years, have volunteered to lend a helping hand to see the project completed.
He stressed that this project is not an ordinary idea, but is one which aligns with the vision of President David Granger.
“It is also common (knowledge) everywhere that climate change is on the rise and global warming and environmental issues are becoming more popular in Guyana, like flooding and so on. So I think that we can show people one way to recycle, especially these plastic bottles which are a major pollutant. In our community, when there is a flood and we look at the trenches, the first thing we find is plastic bottles, so our aim is to show people that they can recycle these things to reduce the environmental issues that we are faced with, and even create an employment for young people, because through these initiatives they can do other crafts and sell their products,” Putulall explained.

He told this publication that work on the project began in February of this year, since he received the financial grant for the initiative only in December 2017.
The idea was birthed, he said, while he was sitting on his veranda thinking of all the environmental issues facing the community and county at large.
“Seeing the community ground as a swamp every day, especially when it rains, had given me the drive to come up with this idea; and luckily, the Ministry of Education at that point (in) time had the funding available for the Youth Innovation Project. So I went ahead and wrote my proposal, formed a group and established a management committee, and submitted the proposal.”
Putulall was keen to note that, upon receiving the funding, the group registered at the Guyana Revenue Authority, established a bank account, and employed three ‘trustees’ who manage the money so as to eliminate any possible financial misunderstandings.
He reported that tyres are currently being used to erect the fence, which also includes four rows of blocks.
Once completed, the ground will host a training centre for single parent mothers, unemployed early school leavers, and others, who would be taught to use discarded tyres and other materials to recycle and create items that can be sold at low cost, so as to earn an income.