We are extremely proud to announce that we entered 2 categories at the 360 Blue Green Awards this year (1) Dive Operator of the Year and (2) we entered Helen for the the Blue Green personality of the Year Award. And Guess what? We won both categories with Lembeh Resort taking the Dive Operator of the Year trophy and Helen taking the Personality of the Year award due to her efforts in Pintu Kota vilage with the Green Library and the Trash Bank efforts. Well done everyone!
Winning these awards means so much to us - not only that our efforts have been recognised but by showing people that if they work on sustainability, piece by piece, it will come together and you can make a positive change to the area you live in - a change that benefits so many other people and which inspires other communities to do the same.
We did not tell Helen that we had entered her - so when she found out that she had won she was over the moon, totally surprised and for the first time ever - totally speechless! In Helen's application form we submitted that,
"They say it takes a village to raise a child but (Helen) has raised awareness of sustainability to an entire village. Helena has approached village leaders and senior community members to gain their trust and support for recreating the village as an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable model community".
We are so proud of Helen and everything she has done as part of the Lembeh Foundation - of which she was a founding member.
Lembeh Resort's application centered around how the resort handles waste, minimizes the single-use plastic and aims to maximise all green technologies as they become available - we never sit back and think we have done enough - there is always another step to take towards becoming even more sustainable.
In our application for Dive Operator of the Year we mentioned that:
"The core aims of the Lembeh Foundation are to reduce plastic waste, provide education and economic benefits while improving the health and sustainability of local communities".
and that,
" We reduce plastic at every opportunity and are always actively searching for more that we can do".
Just because we have won these awards it does not mean we are finished and have reached our goal - far from it. There is so much more that we can do, so many new strategies that are becoming available and ultimately so much more that we want to give back to the beautiful island of Lembeh which we are fortunate enough to call home.
Thank you to everyone on our team, especially to Petra for leading us, Pak Ray for his ongoing support and a HUGE congratulations to Helen.
If you would like to help us continue to make a difference by developing our trash bank and green library (both of which are now under construction) it's easy to make a donation by credit card. We will send you a credit form and a tax receipt once the funds have cleared so you can claim back tax.
You can contact us on info@LembehFondtion.org - thank you in advance - every $ makes a big difference!