Green your Lunch break is back!

The sun is up, and we’re back with Green your Lunch break for Spring and Summer 2013!

In case you haven’t been or heard of our previous lunch breaks, take a look at this page with pictures of them all!
http://beirutgreenproject.wordpress.com/greenyourlunchbreak/

On May 11th, we’re back with a special lunch break in Jésuites garden
(Directions: http://bit.ly/LVRETN)

As part of the Geitawi on my mind festival 2013, we are organizing a whole day hangout in the garden. We will start the day at 9am with a paint-up session with Dihzhyners and Dispatch Beirut sponsored by Colortek. At 3pm, we will be joined by the talented Charlie Rayne for a concert.
A Juice cart by Juice for Charity will be at the garden all day, raising funds for Food for Blessed!
So join us with your garden toys, your books, your laughs, your lunch boxes, and let’s have a great day in the garden!
http://www.facebook.com/events/387249968057469/?ref=22

Waffir or how to help in one click

 

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jswaby/123577629/

In a country with regular electricity shortage, do you think we can afford to waste more energy?

Streetlights that are on during the day are one example of this waste, a problem that caught the attention of Mr. Ibrahim Muhanna, founder of The Muhanna foundation .
Together with a team of 10 designers, they began brainstorming about solutions to solve this issue that intrigued them. Waffir was born.

Waffir (or save in arabic) is an app that allows you to report, in one click only, any improperly lit streetlamps wherever they are, in real time. If while driving, walking or gazing down a street during daytime you notice a streetlamp turned on that could mean one of two things:
- the on/off switch that operates the streetlamp is not functioning properly;
- or the set of streetlamps is undergoing maintenance.

The app geo-locates you and sends the information to a database that will be collected weekly and will notify the municipalities responsible. If the same data will repeat itself week after week, the responsible will be held accountable, and the data will be published in the media.  Waffir is not only a way for people to be more conscious about electricity waste, but it’s also a tool to hold people accountable for this waste that Lebanon can’t afford.
Since the app has been launched last week, Waffir has been downloaded on 1069 different phones (845 iPhones and 224 other smart phones), has been notified 442 times of wrongly lit streetlamps in 59 different streets all over Lebabon.

You can read full details about Waffir here: http://muhanna.org/admin/pics/Waffir%20final1.pdf

 

So go on, download it and try it. We cannot wait for the government to come up with solutions for these problems, it’s in our hands to drive things to the better. You might say this is a small issue in the big pile of problems we face on our country, but every little bit counts. We truly encourage such initiatives that are building awareness and contribute to more responsible citizenship. Let’s give society the little help that we can.

After all, it’s just one click away.

You can download the app here: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/waffir-lebanon/id601506467?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=waffir&c=apps

 

 

 

You can read more about Waffir in the Press:

Daily Star

Otv report (Minute 22:52)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gardening and Brunch: a great combination!

A fun day of DIY

On Saturday December 15th, we met up in Alt city for a fun brunch and gardening event in collaboration with FERN. More than 50 people attended an early afternoon of good food and DIY gardening! Glass jars were filled soil and a wide selection of seeds. (thank you Ziad Abi Chaker from Cedar Environmental  for the composts!). We had some nice surprises of creative planters like this toolbox, juice bottles and watering can below that were beautifully decorated at the arts corner later (Thank you Samia Boulad for the fun corner!). So next time, instead of throwing away your juice bottle, why not cut it up and use it as a planter and a nice space for growing Rocca, cucumber or radish? Even better, why not grow your own gifts for the holiday season this year?

When taking your first attempt at planting, there are four things to keep in mind and research: how much sun should your plant get? How much should you water it? How should you cut and how often? How big does the size of the pot has to be?
Watch your plant and learn from it as it might not grow the right way from the first time.
And if you’ve been lucky and had a successful growing, here’s some advice on how repot it.

We would like to thank Plastik Solutions for donating beautiful colored 100% recycled pots that went up for sale as holiday gifts! So start planning for your next creative planter as we’re gonna be having this event again real soon.

 

And you, how did you do?
Good luck everyone with your planting! We would like to know how your plants are doing! Please send us some pictures of the progress at  beirutgreenproject@gmail.com with a subject: gardening brunch, and we will feature them on our blog.

All pictures can be found in this facebook album
All pictures are the property of Beirut Green Project.

 

See you next month!

Gardening Brunch

We teamed up with AltCity and FERN to bring you this delicious and green event next Saturday! Join us for a yummy breakfast buffet with a garden buffet anytime from 10am till 2pm. So, how does it work? You come with a good appetite and you leave with a full tummy and a plant! Come and build your own planter, choose from the ones we already have, or even get your own objects to make planters! We provide you with soil and seeds, and you can make as many planters as you can handle (Think if gifts! Holiday season is coming up!)

For more info, please visit: http://www.facebook.com/events/128867517268017/?fref=ts

Here are some ideas or funky and original planters

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-recycled-plastic-bottle-vert-152419

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/15-repurposed-planters-just-ad-142393

Source: http://www.dirtfromtheclaypot.com

Beirut Green Guide

We’ve been working on a project for quite a while now, and thought it’s time we share it with you and have your input.

In january’s Hamburg meets Beirut workshop, one of the projects that were born from team number two was a printed and an interactive guide for Beirut’s parks.

The aim of this map is to increase awareness of all the green and public spaces in Beirut, and to encourage people to visit the small parks scattered around the city, to walk from place to place, to bicycle more, and to realize that Beirut has a lot of potential to become more “green”.

One of the big incentive that pushed us to start this project together is because we noticed, through our “Green your lunch break” activity, that some people are unaware of the potential of some spaces that we have, and sometimes didn’t know about them.
So we decided to take the challenge, Beirut will have a green guide telling you everything you need to know about these spaces.

Our recent post from Sin el Fil’s Green your lunch break made people realize that there are some parks they have never visited in the city yet!

 

After our presentation in Talk20 last April, we were approached by lovely design studio Wondereight  who liked the project so much they took it on!And the adventure started. We are now working with a team of designers and photographers to bring you this guide, and we will be talking more about it soon!

 

 

Taking matters in your own hands

Congratulations to Tina Maria Jabry for winning the Street Photo of the week in Beirut Street Photographers for the “Green in the city” theme!
http://beirutstreetphotography.com/2012/10/16/street-photo-of-the-week-67/

As BSP brilliantly put it on their blog, this photograph reflects the citizen taking action into their own hand: ”No green space? No problem – I’ll create it on my balcony!”

Great shot Tina! Stay tuned for our selection of trees in the city.

Check out the full read here:
http://www.yef-lb.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Final%20Green%20spaces%20Infographics.pdf

 

Check out this inforgraphic and study  by The Youth Economic Forum pushing stakeholders to vote for green policies to include “Pocket gardens” in highly populated areas.
http://www.yef-lb.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Final%20Green%20spaces%20Infographics.pdf

Let’s take matters in our own hands. Do you live in a cluster of buildings with a potential space for a garden in the middle? Talk about it with your neighbors for a possibility of having a garden space for the buildings!

 

 

 

 

“Une marche verte”

If you’re in Beirut, go pick up the latest issue of Masculin(September). There’s an article from the monthly chronicle “Beyrouth marche” that traces a green path visiting all the parks in Beirut. It’s a good read and is quite interesting; so check it out!

In the article, one thing stood out from the rest. Its author, Antoine Boulad (also, co-founder of Assabil public libraries), visited Mar Nicolas park and noticed that its low visitor rate is due to the fact that the benches are in the wrong place. Instead of being in the shade of the trees, the benches are facing the fountain and have no shade, which doesn’t really make sense for a park. Maybe it could be a project we can propose to the municipality in an attempt to rethink the design of the park?

Do you think we can ask for a bench relocation in Mar Nicolas? How would you improve the design of this park with a good potential? And for those of you who go to Mar Nicolas park, what do you think about it ?