Activity Journal Entry Spring Break

The past couple of months have been different and difficult due to the Covid-19 emergency. One of the consequences of this is that I am unable to do much for my project as beaches are closed. However, I saw an opportunity as I came to spend the break at my grandparents' farm near Perez Zeledon. It is a huge farm in which there's cattle and different plantations such as coconuts. Three highly poor families, including a local indigenous family, were given the opportunity to live in the farm to take care of it and work here. In the first week, I went for a walk with my grandfather to see the coconut plantation and we came through an area in which the families were burning their trash, this made me realize I could continue my project in this area and have a positive impact. The next day I organized a meeting with the three workers (with social distancing as seen in the picture) and we came up with solutions for the issue. As they are unable to afford trash bags, we had the idea that they could use the empty sacks of cow concentrate to put their waste. They were very open and interested in the idea, to the extent of saying that they would also divide it into different recycle categories. With the small waste management project starting, my grandfather helped me contact the mayor of the town to ask if he could send the recycling trucks all the way to the farm, and he accepted. This shows the learning outcome of committing with issues of global importance as I continued to work with this issue somewhere else although my project is focused on the ocean. It also connects to the IB learner profile of open-minded as I opened to work in this new project and help and teach this families about effective waste management.