Litter Steps to Cleaner Spaces

If you ever find yourself in Kigali - the capital of Rwanda - on the last Saturday of every month, you'll bear witness to something rather unusual.

Because on that day - month in, month out - the entire community comes together for a morning to clean and tend their city. It's called umunsi w’umuganda, which means contribution made by the community, and it's a morning that's helped Kigali foster a populous that's proud and caring of where they live.

Although that isn't to say the initiative isn't without problems - all able-bodied people are expected to join - but I think there's something in a community taking ownership of the care of their public spaces. They become our concerns, not someone else's problem.

But anyway, back on topic and this report. Which is all about this lovely group channeling a little Kigalian spirit in our community yesterday evening!

We met in our usual haunt in Greenwich's Naval College - old faces and new friends (welcome, Katrina!), we kicked things off with introductions and smiles, before heading straight into a wonderfully designed warm up, courtesy of Sara! Sara is nearly fully qualified as a Leader in Running Fitness and was testing out a few of her new (yet already well-honed) skills and sessions - some people said, and the rest thought it, everything was far better than my usual attempts..!

We then made our steady way under the river and over to two little green gems on the Isle of Dogs - Millwall Park and Island Gardens - and we got to searching, picking, and bagging stray cans, papers, wrappers, and more.

Just sharing time yesterday in one of our green spaces was a treat. And it's a treat so many of us enjoy, particularly after the last 2 years. Which is why it felt rather awesome to fill 6 big bags full of the stuff that shouldn't have been cluttering these lovely places.

We finished with a quick and creative fitness session and cool down - again courtesy of the lovely Sara - and then it was time for goodbyes and look forwards to meeting up again.

Nice one.