• Home
• /
• Entertainment

PEOPLE LINE UP TO STRENGTHEN CLEAN UP UAE DRIVE

Over 200 students and representatives of the company that sponsored them for the Clean Up UAE campaign were left high and dry on the Ras Al Akhdar beach for nearly two hours yesterday morning when the organisers failed to turn up.

The students sporting white T-shirts and caps with the campaign logo, waited from nine to eleven on the breezy beachside along with their teachers and employees of Tabreed until they were told that there was a last minute change in the venue.

Notwithstanding these minor hitches, the 4th annual Clean Up UAE campaign attracted a high level of interest and participation from diverse groups, drawing around 15,000 people from various public and private organisations across the UAE.

The UAE Clean Up campaign was organised by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) on a national scale covering a total of seventeen sites in all the seven emirates.

When contacted, the EEG explained that ERWDA, which was coordinating the campaign in Abu Dhabi, advised them to change the venue to the new Abu Dhabi Corniche and Eastern Corniche on Sunday evening. "We were also told that they would coordinate with all the participating organisations," said the EEG official.

But Thani M. Al Rumaithi, Administration and Services Support Director who was at the Ras Al Akhdar beach told City Times that he was not informed of the change. "It was me who kept on calling the EEG office and at last when I got through, they simply told me that the venue has been changed. Since it was already too late, we all went back," said Rumaithi. The students had to wait longer because their school buses had already left, he added.