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Treecops in action
Two Dublin teens taking some serious action!
“Hey mom, did you see the new trees?!”
“No. Where?”
“On the green and also all around the estate!”
So off they went to see the new trees. 37 seven new trees planted all around their estate. All the neighbours were talking about it, everybody was excited.
1 week later:
“Hey mom, did you see somebody broke some off the branches from the trees in our estate, and some of the trees in the next door estate have been broken in half!”
“No, I did not, are you serious?”
“Come. I’ll show you”
So of we went to see the broken trees. Five of the newly planted trees in bits! All the neighbours were talking about it, everybody was disappointed.
2 weeks later:
“Hey mom we need to do something about the trees, if we do not do something now, there is not going to be a tree left after summer!”
“So, what can we do?”
“We need to get people involved, we need to do something!”
“OK, you guys can do something and we will support you”
Four weeks later, 16 year old brothers Juvan and Christivan Maritz applied and received a small Superhero grant from SpunOut.ie to make a difference in their local community. Here is how they got on with their project:
- They designed a leaflet and a registration form and distribute it to more than 80 homes in the estate. They have written to 14 people asking for support or a contribution towards their project. These people included two local politicians, a community project, the Gardai, the local Council, local print media and local small business.
- Their idea was to create community awareness and initiate a neighbourhood community policing system to keep and eye out on the newly planted trees and general vandalism in the communal area of the Balruddery Wood estate. They also planned a big community festival on the green.
- 23 homes (more than 30%) signed up for the project with more than 40 people confirmed for the Green Festival.
On 30 April 2011 at 5pm the festival took place. The local pub, Balrothery Inn, sponsored burgers, soft drinks and crisps. Tesco Balbriggan provided party goodies and committed to sponsor a sign post to promote the project.
The Speech at the community festival by SpunOut.ie Superhero, Juvan Maritz:
“Ladies, gentleman and kids. You are very welcome at the launch of our Superhero project sponsored by SpunOut.ie. SpunOut.ie is Ireland's national youth project. Myself and Christivan applied for a small grant to make a difference in our community. We are one from eleven projects all over Ireland that are trying to make a difference in our community. We are gathered here today to celebrate our community spirit. We with 10 other projects were selected out of hundreds of applications to make people aware of caring for our environment. We are also concerned about anti-social behaviour especially the breaking of branches of our newly planted trees and vandalism in our estate. We do not have an easy solution, all that we can offer is to create awareness and encourage everybody in the estate to address vandalism and anti-social behaviour. We have invited our community Guards. If you have any questions please feel free to approach them at any time of the day.
To conclude, I want to say a special thanks to our sponsors Spunout.ie. Balrothery Inn kindly sponsored the burgers, crisps and soft drinks. Thank you Brendan. To Ann O’Brien from Tesco, who sponsored the sweets and other goodies. Today we can also announce that Tesco gave their commitment to sponsor a sign post that will promote the “TreeCops” project. This signpost will be displayed at the entrance of this estate and will be a reminder to all that live here as well as guests that we are serious about our trees!
Thank you for your attendance and special thanks to our community Guards, Grainne and Kate to come down today. Enjoy the burgers and the rest of the day. Then lastly we are now going to plant a tree if the children would like to help they are most welcome.”
The festival was a huge success with lots of new ideas shared between neighbours. Three more projects ideas emerged from the community gathering. One is to have street safety awareness training for the children of the estate in conjunction with the Community Guards, another one is to start a petition to the developers to put up a fence at the road side of the green, hopefully local politicians will support us in this regard as it is long outstanding and lastly is to advocate for seating benches on the green.
All in all, the TreeCops project was a huge success!
Stay tuned to SpunOut.ie to find out about our next round of Superhero Action grants!!! And watch this vid if you're looking for some super-powered inspiration!
