It was an eventful evening as the sun set at Baga Beach, one of Goa’s popular beaches. Foot tapping beats produced from djembes and instruments made from waste material engaged tourists and visitors to participate in closing of the 150-day TeraMeraBeach campaign rolled out by Drishti Marine aimed at educating people, especially domestic visitors, on cleanliness and beach management along the coastal stretch.
Marking the successful run of the awareness campaign, Drishti Marine along with Taal Inc conducted a junk jam session using instruments made out of waste at the popular Baga beach. Additionally, the drum circle and a beach clean-up drive was held at the beach where locals and tourists came together to spread awareness on simple ways and means to keep Goa’s beaches clean.
A unique one-of-a-kind Waste Bar was operational where beach goers traded waste, including straws, cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, bottle caps and paper for beverages and sun-downers. Visitors also contributed to the community art installation by adorning it with waste collected at the beach during the beach clean-up drive.
Noreen van Holstine who conceptualised the campaign along with Taal Inc conducted a workshop on 14th April 2018 at Museum of Goa (MOG) on creating simple musical instruments from waste. The instrument made at the workshop was used at the Junk Jam session at Baga beach.
Ravi Shankar, CEO, Drishti Marine said, “The response to the campaign was excellent. We have made personal contact with approximately 25,000 people including tourists and visitors during the 150-day #TeraMeraBeach campaign. We will continue to do our bit to educate the public about waste management on the beaches of Goa.”
Said Noreen van Holstine, “We had a very good response today, the last day of #TeraMeraBeach campaign by Drishti Marine. We had a large number of people from Goa despite the number of events happening today accross the state. We developed a waste bar for the closing of the campaign where visitors and tourists could exchange bottle caps, cigarette butts and straws for beverages. The visitors had a wonderful evening drumming and cleared the beach.”
The campaign consisted of daily drum circles lead by musicians from Taal Inc. followed by each participant of #TeraMeraBeach adding one piece from the collected waste to the community art installation. The art installation consists of bottles, cans, papers, cloth etc. collected by the participants during the clean-up drive.
#TeraMeraBeach aims to make visitors responsible and aware of the necessity to use bins along the beach, segregate waste and participate in beach clean-ups. This campaign is supported byGoa Tourism, Video Volunteers, Museum of Goa and Veab to raise awareness on keeping Goa’s beaches clean.
In a bid to improve the cleanliness on Goa’s beaches, the state government had reached out to Drishti Marine in December 2016 to step in and assist with garbage collection along the beaches to support the effort of the government. Accordingly, Drishti Marine has offered its assistance and mobilized manpower and equipment for clearing garbage from the beaches of Goa and the same is transported to the Saligao Waste Management plant. The agency has an existing framework which includes infrastructure and management capability to effectively carry out the exercise along the beaches.
