What Are We Doing to Our Seashore ???
Looking towards the sea
as far as your eyes can see
where your head can relax
and forget everything even the tax
but our minds couldn't accept
the scene that we had to reflect
And when we knew that few do care
we hoped that someone could free us from that nightmare the pollution of the sea had made us blind and we hope that someone could help us find a way to clean the sea and make it fine.
Shirene Sousi
HBS
That's what we, Grade 7 in H.B.S. are hoping for. Our project got started with a simple question; "What Are We Doing to Our Seashore ???".we thought about that question for quite sometime and finally decided to study the seashore, well, it's quite simple, we grew up in Saida, played on it's shore and swam in its sea, but we don't do that very often anymore.
Our 1st destination was Saida seashore. We knew that it wasn't exactly perfect, but once we got there we realized what a mess it really was. Garbage was everywhere and even sewage water was released on the shore. It wasn't a pretty sight and we felt responsible to do something about it. After all it's our city and our sea and now .. Our project. In our attempt to understand the causes of such a problem, we contacted the municipality in Saida and asked two of its members to inform us about the causes and the solutions in our local community. Saida seashore faces many problems 2 of them are serious; garbage coming from the dump and sewage water. Saida dump is a large mountain of garbage and its located right on the shore; every passing wave removes a piece of that mountain and takes it in the sea. In our study, we discovered that nothing much can be done about the dump. There are some undergoing studies but they are still on paper. But we found out that there was a water treatment plant under construction in Saida. That was good news and our responsibility was to visit that plant and find more about its future plans. We visited that site and were informed that this plant was designed to construct a collection system of wastewater and treat this wastewater before releasing it 400 meters away from the shore. The water treatment plant doesn't solve the whole problem, but it was a good start.
We have been involved in our project for quite time and we believe that as students we can make a difference. So we conducted a 2 parts survey in our school; one part designed for our schoolmates and the other for the parents. As a result we found that people have a certain degree of awareness about their environmental problems, but it's not enough ...so we decided to submit a recommendation to the local authorities urging them to take the initiative and issue strict laws that can reduce the damage done.
What about us???
We can do something.
We can start in our school community with an environmental club. We will...
Zeina Hariri, Rola Khlifa, Mohammad Atalla and all Grade 7 B students
