Story

Problem Statement: 

Canacona, which for decades was considered the quieter, greener, and comparatively untouched part of Goa, has witnessed a rapid influx of tourists over the past few years. This has augmented the effects of what was already an issue in the region – Unsegregated Garbage.
Even with the municipality sending out their employees to collect garbage every morning, the number of black spots of mindlessly strewn waste in the inlands and the interiors has started posing a problem, and it’s a problem that is on the rise daily.

Identified Solution:

Friends of Canacona is a group of individuals who have started multiple initiatives in a humble attempt to bring back the serene beauty of Canacona and reinstate kinship amongst the locals by making them a part of these initiatives.

Plan of Action:

We have currently employed 2 garbage collectors, and provided them with a colourful garbage collection cart, safety gloves, boots, rakes and bins for the collection of glass and recyclable plastic. We hope to have another similar cart so that we can clean large areas simultaneously. While clean up drives are a major part of the program, we also plan to put together a small market for locally made products and locally grown produce, sold by the local communities of the region. This will entail renting a small piece of land and setting up simple make-shift stalls for them. We will also set up water refilling stations for tourists to refill their water bottles and deter them from buying single use plastic bottles of water.

The vision is to restore, maintain and share the already existing beauty of Canacona and make it a model town for the rest of the state to follow and show that tourism can thrive alongside nature.