International Students Clean-Up Streets

International Students Clean-Up Streets

Media Release
6.8.04

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS CLEAN-UP STREETS

Each weekend as many students are sleeping or socializing, a small group of Korean and Japanese international students are walking the streets.

The dedicated team spends a few hours every Saturday and Sunday filling up rubbish sacks with litter collected from Auckland’s city streets.

The team has been carrying out their good deed for several months now and they are attracting attention for their effort. Local television programme, Asia Downunder has interviewed the students for their show.

Won Joon Choo the Korean Volunteer team leader says several members of public ask them why they doing it. His reply is he wants to keep Auckland tidy.

Won Joon says cleaning up the city is also a good way to show Kiwis that as international students they do care about New Zealand.

Won Joon is currently studying English at AIS St Helens. It was at this institute that he met the founding member – Hiroaki Hasegawa, who leads the Japanese team called Rainbow.

Through using the Internet and talking with other international students, Hiro was instrumental in gathering the team together. Initially he began with five student volunteers, now there are five Japanese and 13 Korean students from various institutes.

Each clean-up session lasts about two hours and in that time approximately five large rubbish sacks of waste are collected.

ENDS

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