This year’s Olive Festival in Kyrenia was a fantastic opportunity for Catalköy’s schoolchildren and their teacher Dalman Zaifoglu to promote their project “I don’t use plastic bags” with which they have more than once been in our local newspapers for their enthusiasm and efforts around environment protection.

On the stage in the centre of Zeytinlik they performed again their short play to make people understand what the idea was.

Some children were doing their shopping at a green grocers stall and when presented

with a plastic bag they insisted, that the purchase should be placed into their cotton bags which they had hanging over their shoulders. Another girl, acting as a television reporter, followed by a boy acting as camera man approached the group and questioned them one by one, why they insisted not to use the given plastic bags. The children gave all good reasons: protecting the environment, to avoid using plastic whenever possible, that bags swimming in the sea are a danger to turtles and finally, that they want to act for the environment and not only talk about it. 

It was their teacher Dalman Zaifoglu who had inspired the class for that play. They are a self-confident group and good actors and they sound convincing. We all hope that the message is carried on.

The children had their own stand where they used a stencil to paint a pretty olive twig on the cotton bags which were given to them by the initiator Mrs Irene Raab from Kaleidoskop Turizm to sponsor the project. The sale was a big success. With the money they will follow up new projects for the protection of environment. Ideas to support their work are most welcome.

Later in the afternoon, the representative of the Kyrenia Belediye and organizer of the olive festival, Mr Nidai Güngördü and public relations lady Aysun handed over a plaquette to Mr Dalman Zaifoglu and to Mrs Irene Raab from Kaleidoskop to thank for their support and work in the field of environment protection.

Copyright Heidi Trautmann 2009