Hello Local Guides,
I’m Ermes, and I’m happy to announce that on March 27th, on Connect, we celebrate the seventh anniversary of #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the Local Guides who, in these seven years, have contributed with their actions to making our planet cleaner. Hundreds of interventions around the world, to clean, educate, inform.
Time passes, and we are still here. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Local Guides program, we will dedicate the entire month of April to our planet, to taking care of it. April, because it is the month in which Earth Day is celebrated, which this year has a motto that seems made for us Local Guides: Our Power, Our Planet™.
We can all intervene, with actions large and small, to show love and above all respect for the planet. For those who wish to join, this is the “Call to action”: Earth Day 2025 Worldwide Meet-up - #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld - Our Power, Our Planet™.
For those who have recently arrived on Connect, and want to know more, let’s retrace a bit of our history.
What is #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld? #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld is a campaign, published on Connect on March 27, 2018, dedicated to cleaning the environment. Thanks to the commitment of the Community, the campaign was then translated into 17 languages, to make participation easier for Local Guides around the world. The main purpose of the campaign is to educate and raise awareness on environmental issues, inside and outside the Community. Educate and raise awareness through what we do, not only to “clean” from abandoned waste, but also to ensure that it is not abandoned again. In seven years we have held hundreds of meet-ups all over the world. Explore the map to discover them all.
The beach is also ours. I cannot fail to mention the words of a Hungarian lady who had traveled over 600 km with her 16-year-old daughter to come and help us clean the beach: “We come here on vacation every year, now that we have cleaned it, this beach is also ours, and we will not allow others to dirty it again.” It may seem trivial, but the secret is all here: taking care of places as if they were our home.
Many ways to educate. As Local Guides, we can educate in many different ways:
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Clean the World, and let ourselves be seen while we do it. This was a surprise for me: in the meet-ups we organized for Clean The World, there have always been people who spontaneously joined to help. The record was reached for an event coordinated between #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld and local associations to clean the beach after one of the most tragic storms that hit northeastern Italy. Hundreds of people joined, reaching the record figure of 500: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/recap-clean-the-world-puliamo-la-spiaggia-di-jesolo/159943/2
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Document and tell, not only what we do but also which are the places where waste is abandoned. We can create maps, but also be creative: Waste art - How to increase awareness - #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld.
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Improve information on Google Maps through our reviews but also by mapping: Local Guides Challenge - Recycling drop-off locations #onGoogleMaps
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Educate: Cleaning the school garden, or the park near the school, together with children and their parents, is a beautiful experience, and for children it is also an unforgettable experience. Tomorrow the world will be theirs, and they are our hope. If they learn to respect the planet, they will never forget it.
Let us be recognized. We use the #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld logo for our Local Guides activities for the environment. The logo was created by us and for us, with permission to use it for all #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld activities. Use #LGCleanTheWorld7 and #EarthDay25 in the social media to promote your Meet-up
As I said at the beginning, we are still here. I cannot help but return with memories to the first of January 2018, when, taking a walk on the beach (I love the sea in winter), I found it completely covered with plastic caps. From there everything started, the idea of cleaning the beach, and then launching a campaign: we are millions, and #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld has shown us the true power of the Community: working together for important goals. In my mind, it was supposed to last a year, but after seven years (and a lot of tons of waste collected) we are still here. Isn’t it beautiful?
Don’t miss your chance to make a difference! Create your own #LGCleanTheWorld7 meet-up and register it here now: Earth Day 2025 Worldwide Meet-up - #LocalGuidesClean The World - Our Power, Our Planet™
I cannot believe it’s the 7th Anniversary of Local Guides Clean the World. Time is flying by so quickly.
