Lautoka-based Jasper Williams High School and Nadi Sangam Primary School will join the Recycling on the Go (ROG) Ambassadors Programme this year.

The Ministry of Education has endorsed Pacific Recycling Foundation’s (PRF) proposal to upscale the programme.

The ROG Ambassadors Programme is an initiative of the PRF in partnership with Swire Shipping.

PRF founder Amitesh Deo said they were delighted to take the programme to the Western Division after successfully piloting it at Jai Narayan College.

“We received the Ministry of Education’s endorsement last week on our request to upscale the program to two more schools in 2023. The ROG program will be running in three schools this year as the Ministry has also endorsed for the program to continue for another year at Jai Narayan College,” said Mr Deo.

He said they are equally grateful to Swire Shipping for their continued support of the program.

“Preparatory works have commenced for the launches, implementation of the program and a comprehensive training program aimed at impacting mindset and behaviour change toward recycling,” said Mr Deo.

He said the ROG Ambassadors Programme in an all-girls boarding/day scholar school and primary schools , both in the Western Division was expected to provide PRF with useful data that could be compared with the findings from Jai Narayan College and used for further upscaling as well as policy development.

He said while the ROG Ambassadors Programme was aimed at inculcating best practices of recycling aimed at impacting mindset and behavior change. It should be noted that a significant number of recyclables from these three schools will no longer end up at the landfill or dump sites but instead be taken for recycling.

The ROG Ambassadors programme has a huge potential to foster economic, environmental, and social developments in Fiji.

Mr Deo said they had made submissions to Government to commit to a partnership to upscale the programme for more schools in Fiji.

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