Hi Shamal,
I am the guy you had chat with earlier, thank you for the interest and selfless effort you are putting in to make our country a better place. It is an uphill battle but a start had to be made and you are doing admirable work. Best wishes.
Stan
Salaam All
Sunday 6/23 In the early morning: Just the brushcutter & I cleaning up in front of ISA school. A Hindu woman met me and said she would like her daughter to attend the school seeing it did so well at the NGSA exams. She made me smile...nothing like success, eh!!!...Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result...She will go there on Monday to make enquiries.
The pics were taken today Sunday by a British guy who was just passing me raking grass on East St. avenue. He said a courteous good morning and I replied. You're doing a good job he said and I asked him if he drives and handed him a No Litter bumper sticker. From there 2 strangers alone in the quiet surroundings got to sharing views about this filthy city. As I spoke he said can I take some pics of you to share with my people in the UK...it's then I knew where he was from. He spoke about the graffiti problem in London and how he just came in from Barbados where it is so clean. For 1/2 hour under cloudy skies and a cool breeze we chatted about the local & global littering problem...then we shook hands and he said I am so thankful that I took this walk in this avenue. He had me laughing when he said he just walked with his camera and not his Iphone...or else he would have had these pics in London immediately telling them about this "one-man army"....He took my email from a flyer and sent the above.
We make our own destinies and meet interesting people when we leave our comfort zones for just a few hours and do what many regard as derogatory work. From Dec 2012 to June 2013 those of us who have gone to schools, ministries and on the road, yep, esp. on the road, have come into contact with some amazing persons. These people and their encouraging words have been the fuel that keeps the engines of this environmental work purring...thank you all.
ISA's schoolchildren were out on Friday as they are most Fridays doing some cleaning. Thank you so much...the govt turns a blind eye but God SEES.
This adoption of East St. and its continued maintenance is "PROTEST WORK" against the govt & m&cc that have failed miserably in cleaning and beautifying this city. It's to allow schoolchildren to "see" a pretty surrounding when they are at school...go there at 3:00pm and see how many of them are there playing in the avenue. We do NOT want a generation of children growing up and taking "nasty & ugly" environs as a given.
Ramadan starts around July 9th. Please Muslims CLEAN the areas around your mosque. God is Beautiful and loves beauty.
Let's rewind 27 YEARS...yes, 27 years... and read about this declaration.
The Assisi Declarations on Nature, 1986
In 1986, HRH Prince Philip, then President of the WWF International invited five leaders of five of the major religions of the world - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism - to meet to discuss how their faiths could help save the natural world.
The meeting took place in Assisi in Italy, because it was the birth place of St Francis, the Catholic saint of ecology. From this meeting arose key statements by the five faiths outlining their own distinctive traditions and approach to the care for nature.
In the Assisi Declarations on Nature the Muslim statement was:
- The central concept of Islam is Tawhid or the Unity of God. Allah is Unity; and His Unity is also reflected in the unity of mankind, and the unity of man and nature. His trustees are responsible for maintaining the unity of His creation, the integrity of the Earth, its flora and fauna, its wildlife and natural environment. Unity cannot be had by discord, by setting one need against another or letting one end predominate over another; it is maintained by balance and harmony. There Muslims say that Islam is the middle path and we will be answerable for how we have walked this path, how we have maintained balance and harmony in the whole of creation around us.
- So unity, trusteeship and accountability, that is Tawhid, Khalifah and Akhirah, the three central concepts of Islam, are also the pillars of the environmental ethics of Islam. They constitute the basic values taught by the Qur’an. It is these values which led Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, to say: ‘Whoever plants a tree and diligently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded.'
- For all these reasons Muslims see themselves as having a responsibility towards the world and the environment, all of which are the creations of Allah.
- Unlike many other religions, Muslims do not have any specific festivals in which they give thanks for the harvest or the world. Instead they give thanks to Allah regularly for his creation.
Ramadan is a month of ACTION...let's put the environmental ethics of Islam into ACTION...it's a battle we must win...as the Prophet (p) won so many of the battles forced upon him in the glorious WORKING month of Ramadan
Shamal...please make donations to keeping the environment clean
