Photos: GFOX Holds Beach Clean-Up In Angola

January 30, 2020

GFOX, a company which was founded by Bermudian Quinton DeShield, held a beach clean-up on Saturday [Jan 25] in Luanda, Angola, with the concept behind the project being to clean up while helping to create employment for people.

Some 260 garbage bags of trash were collected during the endeavor, which is part of the overall Planet Over Profit Project.

Mr. DeShield explained, “On Saturday, January 25, we started our first beach clean in the Samba district in Luanda which also happened to be the anniversary of the city. We decided to start our cleaning event at the far side of the beach were we aim to work our way towards the city which is a few kilometres away.

“Why we decided to start in the worst affected area of the beach is due to the congregation of children we found during our initial site visit and the effect it would have for them to have an area a bit cleaner to play in.”

“This project was fully funded by GFOX Solutions Ltd in the UK with the assistance of Freeze It Ship It, a social enterprise idea to supply food that can’t be sold by supermarkets to communities in the UK which have been hard hit by the economy.

“We were able to raise a total of £1,160 pounds between the December 1, 2019 and January 24, 2020 for this initial project. Planet Over Profit is an idea to encourage individuals, companies and government departments as part of their corporate responsibility to play a part in the sustainability and environmental education of developing countries.

“This not only helps with their image in their local communities but it is great PR for sponsored programs here in Angola, especially the UK companies which would like to invest here in the future. We were able to have a five minute interview on the Angolan national radio during our cleaning project to describe what we are doing and why it was important to educate about sustainability and the environment.

“In brief, the project was a success as we hired locals in the community to work for the day and had lunch made for them when they were finished. This would have a bigger impact then people periodically coming to clean with no real involvement with the community. Our plan is to not only clean but to educate the community on why and how they can keep there environment cleaner and the benefits it would bring to their health.

“In conclusion we would like to not only finish off the project we started on Saturday, but continue along the beach to complete the job we started. Therefore we are continuing to reach out to the public for support either through direct donations or sharing the word about what we are trying to achieve.

“This is not a charity as the idea is to create full time employment for the people here in Angola and move from beaches to waterways, roadsides, and neighbourhoods.”

For more information or to sponsor a clean-up, visit the website.