Right after the May 2022 elections, our volunteer group, the Leni-Kiko volunteers in our hometown, was inspired by former Vice-President Leni Robredo's initiative to create her own NGO. So, we also decided to keep our group together and create our own local volunteer group, ANGAT VICTORIAS, naming it after our city.
So, after having our logo created by Raymart, who was one of our volunteer-artists that created the Leni-Kiko murals in Victorias City and Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, we thought of volunteer activities that we could do for our hometown.
On July 16, 2022, Saturday, we decided to help clean up a part of the Malihaw River in Victorias City.
The first-ever volunteer activity of ANGAT VICTORIAS was to fish out trash/garbage floating on the Malihaw River in Daan Banwa, Barangay 9, Victorias City.
The choice of the location was symbolic as this was where Victorias originated in the 1800s, and the choice of the time and date was to coincide with the high tide of about two meters at noon that day.
The high waters enabled the bancas to easily navigate the waters around the Daan Baan port where the acitivity concentrated.
Although the river clean-up resulted in a few garbage bags of floating trash as most of our volunteers were not available that day, the ANGAT VICTORIAS volunteers believe that educating the communities and barangays living along the river banks of Malihaw and Magnanud Rivers is the most important aspect of a real river clean-up.
While the floating trash collected consisted mostly of plastic bottles and single-use plastic bags, discarded food packaging, and plastic plates and toys, the volunteers noticed that dead pets, human waste, and occasional discarded appliances were also carelessly thrown into the river.
For future activities, the ANGAT VICTORIAS volunteers endeavor to hold activities that will help raise environmental awareness in our city.😍
