Project Launch:

The community of San Fidel, El Salvador is a lovely place to visit, with neighbors who warmly greet a stranger on the side of the road. Despite the beauty of its people, the environment has not been so lucky. On every street and in every field, the ground is covered in garbage. The river that runs through the villages is littered with plastic bags, Styrofoam plates, and batteries. A $278 grant from World Connect’s Kids to Kids Program in 2010 launched “Tierra Linda: Una Semana del Medio Ambiente” to promote environmental preservation. The program worked with the Centro Escolar San Fidel, the largest school in the municipality, to organize an environmental week. Approximately 700 students from San Fidel participate in activities honoring Earth Day. The school's teachers created a schedule that included guest speakers, a community cleanup day, a tree planting day, and a drawing/essay contest. Students picked up trash to clean up their streets, planted new trees and worked on the community’s organic garden and now boast a better understanding of what it means to be environmentally friendly and a cleaner community.