Since April 2024, we have been offering various training courses to individuals and groups to raise awareness in the diocese of San Ignacio (especially in the district’s city) on this issue. Courses were also provided at the Marian shrine of Chochís and in the municipality of Roboré for teachers and school principals from contracted schools.
Additionally, we have launched a tree nursery at the parish of María Asunta, as the best time to transplant trees here is in November/December when the rainy season begins. This allows the small plants to grow slowly (4-5 months). Students and teachers from neighboring primary and secondary schools greatly helped in setting up the nursery, as it was quite a task to fill 5,000 bags with soil and natural compost and then plant the tree seeds.
In the second phase, we primarily provided garbage bins to rural villages (rural schools, community centers, and chapels), as one of the main problems in our city and rural villages is waste. We encouraged children, youth, and adults to separate waste into two or three bins. In most places, it will be possible to separate organic waste from “other” waste. We invited teachers and community leaders to turn organic waste into compost and deposit it in one or two locations. This is not easy, as it requires extra effort, and not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea. However, we hope to convince several villages, and by next year, we will be able to show the first positive results.
In some schools in the city, it is already possible to separate plastic because there is now a factory in the city of Santa Cruz, 500 kilometers away, where plastic is recycled. For us, this means setting up a “temporary storage” and organizing transportation to Santa Cruz, but it is the only way to slowly raise awareness that protecting Mother Earth also takes time, money, and effort.
