Why I Decided To Be The Guardian Of The Beaches And Rivers In Puerto Rico
Hello My name is Jivan and I have been living on the beautiful island of Puerto Rico for the past 8 years and for the past five years I decided to be the guardian of the beaches and rivers of Puerto Rico as I grew tired of seeing this beautiful world of ours inundated with trash.
I would walk around with my many signs every week at various beaches and rivers around the beautiful island of Puerto Rico to raise awareness to the people about the destruction we continue to cause by leaving the beaches, rivers and roads dirty with trash.
Most people would ask why do I care for the beaches and rivers here in Puerto Rico, when I am not even a native to this island. But few would understand my philosophy in life and how I view our world. I don’t see division or borders or countries or race. I see our world, our home and I would fight for my home where ever I may be. I don’t fight for a country, I fight for OUR world.
I do it for this beautiful world that is our home that we have been so disconnected from. For all the species that also call it home.
Here we have this beautiful paradise and I just see the people sitting next to the garbage as if it was nothing as you will see in this video here. Nature has become the Garbage can and sadly not only here but all over the world, garbage has become second nature to the people.
So I decided enough was enough. Someone had to do something and that someone was me.
I awoke with new eyes to see the world and its beauty around me. We all have a voice to use but we have let it become suppressed because we fear of what others might think. So we often conform to all the injustices around us.
I believe action is key and a call of action is what this world desperately needs for us to progress and to evolve.
The signs that I carry are a call of action. I would go everywhere with my signs as I have become a human billboard because we now live in a world where people need a dose of reality.
Anytime that I would go to the beaches or rivers I would bring my sign because we live in a world where we need signs in order for the people to realize the world around them and as a reminder of what they must do. The signs I bring are a way to educate the people.
Some will find my signs to be aggressive and some would consider them “radical and extreme”, but they need to be in this day in age where people have grown comfortably numb to this beautiful world and because please stop dirtying the beach does not cut it anymore.
My signs have left a positive impact to the people who have read them. The people would respond by cleaning up when they read those signs.
I often ask myself why do I care so much about the environment and our world so much, when we live in a world where it seems no one cares at all and that is what we all probably tell ourselves so we choose to go on ignoring the problems this world faces and choose to follow that same mindset of not caring.
I believe we must free ourselves from that mindset. We must start caring more and we should not accept this type of world because this is the type of world that our children will inherit.
We should want to strive to change things. Strive for a better tomorrow and for a better world. Stop being complacent with the way things are.
If everyone would just care a little we can start changing things. It all starts with you. We are all the dents and together collectively we could all make the biggest impact.
It has become my duty as it should be all of our duty to be the change this world need in order for us to change our world.
Along with walking around with my signs to raise awareness, I would go around cleaning the beaches and rivers whenever I visited them. I issued a challenge to the people to go out to the beaches and collect just one bagful of trash that they find anywhere they are in this beautiful world. You can read more about the challenge here.
I decided to be the guardian of wherever I will be as I would be watching to see if people would leave their garbage behind and to speak out against those who do. Here I did a social experiment where I hid behind a tree to see if people would pick up garbage
We could all choose to be the guardian of wherever we may be. To speak out against those who are damaging the environment with their neglect. To care after this beautiful world. Again, action is what we need more of instead of being complacent by doing NOTHING.
My intention was to wake people up to the paradise that our world is. So many beautiful places on this island. over 200 beautiful beaches and so many rivers all of which are mostly all contaminated by garbage. You damn right I will be vocal, by any means necessary.
I believe in doing what you love. This has become my work, this has become my “job”. To take care of this world and the species that inhabit it. I don’t get paid for this, I do this from the heart.
By the way my native language is English. My Spanish was really bad entering this island, but thanks to the help of translate websites and friends that I made along the way, I made all these signs for the people to read.
Who knows, maybe if my Spanish was better I would have a bullhorn. but I think the signs make a powerful statement and yes most of what the signs say came from my mind and are unique to me and they have surely made a positive impact wherever I go.
I accept donations to continue my plight, so I can continue to spread awareness.
Here is a video of what I do.. Be sure to subscribe to my channel!
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