By Molly Magennis
The Vietnamese Association in Hobsons Bay is hosting a special exhibition to promote recycling among the community.
The 5Rs Recycling Exhibition was created as a result of the association’s Zero to Hero program that they ran in 2020.
The program was created to help the Vietnamese community adjust to the council’s new kerbside waste and recycling services that were introduced in 2020.
Through this program, in collaboration with a local artist, participants designed a set of five mascot artworks and then proposed a set of five children’s books that aim to promote the principles of recycle, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and refuse.
“When council introduced [new] recycling [services], we really wanted to educate our members because we actually classify as a cultural group and we want to educate our new members on the importance of recycling,” Hobsons Bay Vietnamese Association President Myly Nguyen said.
“We wanted to promote [the idea] to the members that they need to be involved, need to be responsible for climate change and things like that.”
Ms Nguyen said the association is hoping to find some authors to write stories for their proposed children’s books soon, to not only educate children on the importance of recycling, but also their parents and grandparents who will be reading the books to them.
“Grandparents and kids play a very important role because they teach each other,” Ms Nguyen said.
“The commitment of recycling from the grandparents, from the oldest generation… is really really important.”
The exhibition will run from March 12-24 at the Louis Joel Arts & Community Centre in Altona.
