Dubai school scores with bin scheme

This content was originally posted in 7DAYS UAE website at: Dubai school scores with bin scheme A group of students kicked off a novel plan to encourage fellow pupils to clean up the school canteen. Yiahkoub Bouherrafa, a 17-year-old French grade 12 student from the School of Modern Skills in Dubai, came up with the idea of using football-themed rubbish bins and then asking students to fill the bin of their favourite teams. “In our school the students are very passionate about football, but it also meant they got into very heated arguments so a lot of energy was wasted,” he said. “I wanted to channel this energy into something positive so I came up with the idea to get more students to clean up after themselves as many of them do not, which means more work for the cleaners.” The scheme, ‘Football Trash’, was part of a grade 12 English class that included a project on how to better serve communities and change behaviour. Yiahkoub and two other classmates labelled two bins with the club crests of Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, and wrote a note that read: “Which football team do support? Let us know by putting your garbage in the bin that represents you. This project is not about reducing football clubs to a trash bin. It is in my opinion a way that we can show love toward the team we support.” The group carried out trials and last week officially launched the initiative at the school’s sport day. On that occasion, Barcelona took the honours. “The experience so far has been positive,” Yiahkoub said. “Many students rushed to put garbage in the bin they supported and many were even picking up bottles and cans which are not theirs. The cleaner was surprised to see that the tables were clean. He did not say anything but I saw on his face how happy he was.” Bouherrafa said he will start doing this once a week, sometimes with different teams. Hopefully this will get students in good habits,” said Bouherrafa. wafa.issa@7days.ae Read the original story at: Dubai school scores with bin scheme