Welzijnsorginisatie Perspect
Location:
Trefpunt De Dijk
Susannadijk 153
3079 VN Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Date: 19. September 2011
For the past two years, Green Waters has a partnership with organisation Perspect. Perspect is a well respected organisation in Rotterdam Ijsselmonde, that works together with individuals as well as organisations - such as Green Waters - which are within the community of Ijsselmonde, to improve the surrounding and environment of our community.
On 24th of September 2011, Perspect organised the community event “Mondiaal Festival” and invited Green Waters to give some “Creative recycling” workshops under project one of W.I.F.E.S – Winning Initiative For Environmental Sustainability.
One of Green Waters representatives, Melissa Yvonne Tesha, was happy to give the following two workshops:
1. Kleiding Pimpen (Pimping of clothes)
2. Houdjes Pimpen (Pimping of hats)
Asked to describe her workshop about clothes pimping in less than 10 lines, Melissa replied:
"The idea is to make the target group see that it's not necessary to buy a T-shirt for 60 Euro from brands and that it is possible to recycle what you already have in your wardrobe and make it look trendy and pricy – ‘New-age Vintage‘.”
As for her motivation for giving a W.I.F.E.S workshops, Melissa told us:
"Throughout the years I have seen my age mates thriving for newer, more expensive and not necessarily sustainable clothes. Determined to always be dressed in the latest fashion and simply discarding the old, disregarding the fact that it could still be of use in favour of moving on to the next best thing. My goal is to show people that old things can be re-invented into new ones, to given them a second life so to speak. I believe that this workshop is good for environment sustainability and for the pocket.”
We believe this kind of attitude coming from the new generation is worth nurturing. For us to start formulating the ways of handling the more challenging environmental impacts such as climate change and biodiversity loss, it is important to change our consumer habits. This can be brought about by making young people understand for instance, the impacts of the chemicals that are used to grow cotton, for the eventual production of clothes affect the land, water sources, health, and biodiversity. Recycling is important, the journey of a thousand miles, begins in a single step. Melissa confirms: “Everyone likes to accessorize every now and then. Be it shoes, bags or jewellery. Most would go about this by buying new things every few months, believing this to be the only way to stay ahead of the crowd, to be "original". By doing this workshop I want to show people they don't have to spend vast amount of money every few months to be fashionable and help them be truly original. For what is more original than something you’ve created yourself and therefore can not simply be found in some shop?”
A lot of us will agree with Melissa. We look forward to more wonderful creative recycling ideas from the young people.
Many thanks to Perspect staff for organising yet another wonderful event. We also want to give special thanks to Gre Korteweg, as we appreciate the inclusion.
